THE    NEW  THEOLOGY 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 


BY 
R.   J.   CAMPBELL,   M.A. 

MINISTER  OF  THE  CITY  TEMPLE,  LONDON 


Wefa  gorft 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1907 

All  rights  rnerotd 


COWWGHT,   1907, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  March,  1907, 
Reprinted  April,  1907. 


Norfaoofi  l^rtea 

J.  8.  Gushing  <fc  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA    BARBARA 


INTRODUCTION 

THIS  book  has  been  undertaken  at  the  request  of 
a  number  of  my  friends  who  feel  that  recent  criticisms 
of  what  has  come  to  be  called  the  New  Theology 
ought  to  be  dealt  with  in  some  comprehensive  and 
systematic  way.  With  this  suggestion  my  own 
judgment  concurs,  but  only  so  far  as  my  own  pulpit 
teaching  is  concerned.  I  cannot  pretend  to  speak 
for  anyone  else,  and  therefore  this  monograph 
must  not  be  understood  as  an  authoritative  exposi- 
tion of  the  views  held  and  expounded  by  other 
preachers  who  may  be  in  sympathy  with  the  New 
Theology.  From  its  very  nature,  as  I  hope  the 
following  pages  will  show,  the  New  Theology  cannot 
be  a  creed,  but  its  adherents  have  a  common  stand- 
point. My  only  reason  for  calling  this  book  by 
that  title  is  that  a  considerable  section  of  the  public 
at  present  persists  in  regarding  me  as  in  a  special 
way  the  exponent  of  it ;  indeed  from  the  correspond- 
ence which  has  been  proceeding  in  the  press  it  is 
evident  that  many  people  credit  me  with  having 
invented  both  the  name  and  the  thing.  It  is  of  lit- 
tle use  objecting  to  the  name,  for  to  all  appearance 
it  has  come  to  stay  and  is  gradually  acquiring  a 


VI  INTRODUCTION 

marked  and  definite  content.  So  long  as  it  is 
clearly  understood  that  this  book  is  but  an  outline 
statement  of  my  own  personal  views,  the  title  will  do 
no  harm.  The  controversy  which  is  not  yet  over 
has  been  fruitful  in  misunderstandings  of  all  kinds, 
and  a  great  many  of  the  criticisms  passed  upon  my 
teaching  have  been  wholly  due  to  a  mistaken  notion 
of  what  it  really  is.  In  so  far  as  any  of  those  criti- 
cisms have  been  directed  against  me  personally, 
I  have  nothing  to  say ;  I  hope  I  can  leave  my  vindi- 
cation to  the  judgment  of  whatever  public  may 
feel  an  interest  in  my  work.  The  best  rejoinder  that 
could  be  made  to  the  various  criticisms  of  the 
teaching  itself  would  be  to  publish  them  side  by 
side,  for  they  neutralise  one  another  most  effectually. 
But  a  better  and  more  useful  thing  to  do  is  to  let 
the  public  know  just  what  the  teaching  is  and  leave 
it  to  the  test  of  time.  I  do  not  greatly  object  to 
having  it  described  as  "  new."  The  fundamental 
principle  of  the  New  Theology  is  as  old  as  religion, 
but  I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  that  in  its  all-round 
application  to  the  conditions  of  modern  life  it  is 
new.  I  do  not  see  why  a  man  should  be  ashamed 
of  confessing  that  he  does  his  own  thinking  instead 
of  letting  other  people  do  it  for  him. 

This  book,  then,  is  not  the  author's  Apologia  pro 
Vita  Sua.  It  is  intended  as  a  concise  statement  of 
the  outlines  of  the  teaching  given  from  the  City 
Temple  pulpit.  It  is  neither  a  reply  to  separate 


INTRODUCTION 


criticisms  nor  an  ex  cathedra  utterance.  I  think 
I  am  usually  able  to  say  what  I  mean,  and  in  the 
following  pages  my  object  is  to  say  what  I  mean  in 
such  a  way  that  everyone  can  understand. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACT 

I.    THE  NAME  AND  THE  SITUATION  i 

II.    GOD  AND  THE  UNIVERSE  16 

III.  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD     ....  25 

IV.  THE  NATURE  OF  EVIL 43 

V.    JESUS  THE  DIVINE  MAN 68 

VI.    THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST 84 

VII.    THE  INCARNATION  OF  THE  SON  OF  GOD        .  92 
VIII.    THE  ATONEMENT.  —  I.  ASSOCIATION  OF  THE 

DOCTRINE  WITH  JESUS       .        .        .       .no 
IX.    THE   ATONEMENT.  —  II.    SEMITIC   IDEAS  OF 

ATONEMENT 125 

X.    THE  ATONEMENT.  —  III.  THE  DOCTRINE  IN 

CHRISTIAN  HISTORY  AND  EXPERIENCE      .  139 
XI.    THE  AUTHORITY  OF  SCRIPTURE      .        .        .173 
XII.    SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   AND   THE   LIFE   TO 

COME 200 

XIII.  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD     .  228 

XIV.  CONCLUSION 253 


THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  NAME  AND  THE  SITUATION 

Religion  and  Theology.  —  Religion  is  one  thing 
and  theology  another,  but  religion  is  never  found 
apart  from  a  theology  of  some  kind,  for  theology 
is  the  intellectual  articulation  of  religious  experi- 
ence. Every  man  who  has  anything  worthy  to 
be  called  a  religious  experience  has  also  a  the- 
ology; he  cannot  help  it.  No  sooner  does  he 
attempt  to  understand  or  express  his  experience  of 
the  relations  of  God  and  the  soul  than  he  finds  him- 
self in  possession  of  a  theology.  The  religious  ex- 
perience may  be  a  very  good  one  and  the  theology 
a  very  bad  one,  but  still  religion  and  theology  are 
necessary  to  each  other,  and  it  is  a  man's  duty  to 
try  to  make  his  theology  as  nearly  as  possible  an 
adequate  and  worthy  expression  of  his  religion.  He 
will  never  succeed  in  doing  this  in  a  permanent  fash- 
ion, for  the  content  of  religious  experience  is,  or 
should  be,  greater  than  any  form  of  statement. 
But  theology  is  everyone's  business.  We  cannot 
afford  to  leave  it  to  experts  or  refrain  from  forming 
our  own  judgment  upon  the  pronouncements  of 


2  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

experts.  To  speak  of  theology  as  though  it  had  an 
esoteric  and  an  exoteric  side,  one  for  the  man  in  the 
study  and  the  other  for  the  man  in  the  world,  is 
a  practical  heresy  of  a  most  dangerous  kind.  Neither 
should  theology  be  confounded  with  ecclesiasticism. 
It  is  my  conviction  that  the  battle  with  ecclesiasti- 
cism has  long  since  been  decided,  and  civilisation 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  official  priest.  Those 
who  spend  their  time  in  protesting  against  sacerdotal 
pretensions  are  only  beating  the  air  —  "We  shall 
never  go  to  Canossa,"  as  Bismarck  said.  No,  the 
real  danger  to  spiritual  religion,  and  therefore  to 
the  immediate  future  of  mankind  in  every  depart- 
ment of  thought  and  action,  arises  from  practical 
materialism  on  the  one  hand  and  an  antiquated 
dogmatic  theology  on  the  other.  I  hope  it  will  be 
understood  by  readers  of  these  pages  that  in  any 
references  I  may  make  to  dogmatic  theology  I  am 
passing  no  reflection  upon  the  scientific  theologian 
whose  work  is  being  done  in  the  field  of  historical 
criticism  or  archaeology  or  any  of  the  departments 
of  scientific  research  into  the  subject-matter  of  re- 
ligion. Most  of  my  readers  will  understand  quite 
well  what  I  mean.  Everyone  knows  that,  broadly 
speaking,  certain  ways  of  stating  Christian  truth  are 
taken  for  granted  both  in  pulpit  and  pew ;  the  popu- 
lar or  generally  accepted  theology  of  all  the  churches 
of  Christendom,  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike,  is 
fundamentally  the  same,  and  somehow  the  modern 
mind  has  come  to  distrust  it.  There  is  a  curious 


THE   NAME   AND    THE    SITUATION  3 

want  of  harmony  between  our  ordinary  views  of 
life  and  our  conventional  religious  beliefs.  We  live 
our  lives  upon  one  set  of  assumptions  during  six 
days  of  the  week  and  a  quite  different  set  on  Sunday 
and  in  church.  The  average  man  feels  this  without 
perhaps  quite  realising  what  is  the  matter.  All  he 
knows  is  that  the  propositions  he  has  been  taught  to 
regard  as  a  full  and  perfect  statement  of  Christianity 
have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  his  everyday  ex- 
perience; they  seem  to  belong  to  a  different  world. 
He  does  not  know  how  comparatively  modern  this 
popular  presentation  of  Christianity  is.  What  is 
wanted  therefore  is  a  restatement  of  the  essential 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion  in  terms  of  the  modern 
mind. 

The  New  Theology  and  the  Immanence  of  God. 
—  Where  or  when  the  name  New  Theology  arose  I 
do  not  know,  but  it  has  been  in  existence  for  at  least 
one  generation.  It  is  neither  of  my  invention  nor  of 
my  choice.  It  has  long  been  in  use  both  in  this 
country  and  in  America  to  indicate  the  attitude  of 
those  who  believe  that  the  fundamentals  of  the 
Christian  faith  need  to  be  rearticulated  in  terms  of 
the  immanence  of  God.  Those  who  take  this  view 
do  not  hold  that  there  is  any  need  for  a  new  religion, 
but  that  the  forms  in  which  the  religion  of  Jesus  is 
commonly  presented  are  inadequate  and  misleading. 
What  is  wanted  is  freshness  and  simplicity  of  state- 
ment. The  New  Theology  is  not  new  except  in  the 
sense  that  it  seeks  to  substitute  simplicity  for  com- 


4  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

plexity  and  to  get  down  to  moral  values  in  its  use  of 
religious  terms.  Our  objection  is  not  so  much  to  the 
venerable  creeds  of  Christendom  as  to  the  ordinary 
interpretations  of  those  creeds.  And,  creeds  or  no 
creeds,  we  hold  that  the  religious  experience  which 
came  to  the  world  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  enough 
for  all  our  needs,  and  only  requires  to  be  freed  from 
limiting  statements  in  order  to  lay  firm  hold  once 
more  upon  the  civilised  world. 

The  New  Theology  is  an  untrammelled  return  to 
the  Christian  sources  in  the  light  of  modern  thought. 
Its  starting  point  is  a  re-emphasis  of  the  Christian 
belief  in  the  divine  immanence  in  the  universe  and 
in  mankind.  This  doctrine  is  certainly  not  new,  but 
it  requires  to  be  placed  effectively  in  the  foreground 
of  Christian  preaching.  In  the  immediate  past  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  transcendence  —  that  is,  the 
obvious  truth  that  the  infinite  being  of  God  must 
transcend  the  infinite  universe  —  has  been  presented 
in  such  a  way  as  to  amount  to  a  practical  dualism, 
and  to  lead  men  to  think  of  God  as  above  and  apart 
from  His  world  instead  of  expressing  Himself  through 
His  world.  I  repeat  that  this  dualism  is  practical, 
not  theoretical,  but  that  it  exists  is  plain  enough  from 
such  statements  as  that  of  the  present-day  theologian 
who  speaks  of  God's  "eternal  eminence,  and  His 
descent  on  a  created  world."  This  kind  of  theologis- 
ing  leads  straight  to  the  conclusion  that  God  is  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  quite  distinct  from  His 
creation,  although  He  possesses  a  full  and  accurate 


THE   NAME  AND  THE   SITUATION  5 

knowledge  of  all  that  goes  on  in  it  and  reserves  to 
Himself  the  right  to  interfere.  In  what  sense  lan- 
guage like  this  leaves  room  for  the  divine  immanence 
it  is  difficult  to  see.  The  New  Theology  holds  that 
we  know  nothing  and  can  know  nothing  of  the  In- 
finite Cause  whence  all  things  proceed  except  as  we 
read  Him  in  His  universe  and  in  our  own  souls. 
It  is  the  immanent  God  with  whom  we  have  to  do, 
and  if  this  obvious  fact  is  once  firmly  grasped  it  will 
simplify  all  our  religious  conceptions  and  give  us  a 
working  faith. 

The  decline  of  organised  Christianity.  —  For 
a  generation  or  more  in  every  part  of  Chris- 
tendom there  has  been  a  steady  drift  away  from 
organised  religion  as  represented  by  the  churches, 
and  the  question  is  being  seriously  asked  whether 
Christianity  can  much  longer  hold  its  own.  Protes- 
tant controversialists  frequently  draw  attention  to 
the  decline  of  church-going  in  Latin  countries  as 
evidence  of  the  decay  of  sacerdotalism,  particularly 
in  the  church  of  Rome.  But  outside  Latin  countries 
it  is  not  one  whit  more  noticeable  in  the  church  of 
Rome  than  hi  any  other  church.  The  masses  of 
the  people  on  the  one  hand  and  the  cultured  classes 
on  the  other  are  becoming  increasingly  alienated 
from  the  religion  of  the  churches.  A  London  daily 
paper  made  a  religious  census  some  years  ago  and 
demonstrated  that  about  one-fifth  of  the  population 
of  the  metropolis  attended  public  worship,  and  this 
was  a  generous  estimate.  Women,  who  are  more 


6  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

emotional,  more  reverent,  and  more  amenable  to 
external  authority  than  men,  usually  form  the  major- 
ity of  the  worshippers  at  an  ordinary  service.  Mr. 
Charles  Booth  in  his  great  work  on  the  "Life  and 
Labour  of  the  People  in  London  "  asserts  that  the 
churches  are  practically  without  influence  of  any 
kind  on  the  communal  life.  This  I  believe  to  be  an 
exaggeration,  but  it  will  hardly  be  denied  that  the 
average  working,  business,  or  professional  man 
looks  upon  the  churches  almost  with  indifference. 
In  many  cases  this  indifference  passes  into  hostility 
or  contempt.  Intelligent  men  take  little  notice  of 
preachers  and  sermons,  and  the  theologically- 
minded  layman  is  such  a  rarity  as  to  be  noteworthy. 
Most  significant  of  all,  perhaps,  is  the  fact  that  much 
of  the  moral  earnestness  of  the  nation  and  of 
social  redemptive  effort  exists  outside  the  churches 
altogether.  I  am  well  aware  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  snarling  criticism  of  the  churches  which  springs 
from  selfish  materialism,  and  I  gladly  recognise 
that  in  almost  any  ordinary  church  to-day  brave  and 
self-denying  work  is  being  done  for  the  common  good, 
but  this  does  not  invalidate  my  general  statement. 
The  plain,  bald  fact  remains  that  the  churches  as 
such  are  counting  for  less  and  less  hi  civilisation 
in  general  and  our  own  nation  in  particular.  One 
of  the  ablest  of  our  rising  young  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, a  man  of  strong  religious  convictions  and  social 
sympathies,  recently  declared  that  we  were  witness- 
ing the  melancholy  spectacle  of  a  whole  civilisation 


THE   NAME  AND  THE   SITUATION  7 

breaking  away  from  the  faith  out  of  which  it  grew. 
To  be  sure,  the  same  thing  has  been  said  before  and 
has  proved  to  be  wrong.  It  was  said  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  when  men  with  something  of  the  proph- 
et's fire  in  them  preached  the  gospel  of  the  Rights 
of  Man,  declaring  at  the  same  time  that  institutional 
religion  was  at  an  end,  utterly  discredited,  and  im- 
possible of  acceptance  by  any  intelligent  being. 
In  France  during  the  Revolution  the  populace  turned 
frantically  upon  the  established  faith,  tore  it  to  shreds, 
burlesqued  it,  and  set  up  the  worship  of  the  Goddess 
of  Reason,  as  they  called  it,  typified  by  a  Parisian 
harlot.  In  England  a  devitalised  Deism  laid  its 
chilly  hand  not  only  upon  the  world  of  scholars  and 
men  of  letters,  but  even  upon  the  church.  An 
English  king  is  reported  to  have  said  that  half  his 
bishops  were  atheists.  And  yet,  somehow,  religion 
reasserted  itself  all  over  the  civilised  world.  Napo- 
leon with  shrewd  insight  realised  that  the  people 
could  not  do  without  it,  and  so  effected  the  Con- 
cordat with  Rome  which  has  now  been  dissolved; 
Wesley  began  the  movement  in  England  which  has 
since  created  the  largest  Protestant  denomination 
in  the  world;  Germany  produced  a  succession  of 
great  preachers  and  scholars  the  like  of  whom  had 
hardly  ever  been  known  in  Europe  before. 

Will  religious  faith  regain  its  power?  —  Will  this 
happen  again?  For  assuredly  Christianity  has  for 
the  moment  lost  its  hold.  Can  it  recover  it  ?  I  am 
sure  it  can,  if  only  because  the  moral  movements 


8  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

of  the  age,  such  as  the  great  labour  movement,  are 
in  reality  the  expression  of  the  Christian  spirit,  and 
only  need  to  recognise  themselves  as  such  in  order 
to  become  irresistible.  The  waggon  of  socialism 
needs  to  be  hitched  to  the  star  of  religious  faith. 
But  have  the  churches  spiritual  energy  enough  to 
recover  their  lost  position?  That  depends  upon 
themselves.  If  they  consent  to  be  bound  by  dog- 
matic statements  inherited  from  the  past,  they  are 
doomed.  The  world  is  not  listening  to  theologians 
to-day.  They  have  no  message  for  it.  They  are 
on  the  periphery,  not  at  the  centre  of  things.  The 
great  rolling  river  of  thought  and  action  is  passing 
them  by.  Scientific  scholarship  applied  to  the  study 
of  Christian  origins  is  extremely  valuable,  but  the 
defender  of  systems  of  belief  couched  in  the  language 
of  a  by-gone  age  is  an  anachronism  and  the  sooner 
we  shake  ourselves  free  of  him  the  better.  The  great- 
est of  all  the  causes  of  the  drift  from  the  churches  is 
the  fact  that  Christian  truth  has  become  associated 
in  the  popular  mind  with  certain  forms  of  statement 
which  thoughtful  men  find  it  impossible  to  accept  not 
only  on  intellectual  but  even  on  moral  grounds. 
Certain  dogmatic  beliefs,  for  example,  about  the 
Fall,  the  scriptural  basis  of  revelation,  the  blood- 
atonement,  the  meaning  of  salvation,  the  punish- 
ment of  sin,  heaven  and  hell,  are  not  only  misleading 
but  unethical.  What  sensible  man  really  believes  in 
these  notions  as  popularly  assumed  and  presented, 
and  what  have  they  to  do  with  Christianity  ?  They 


THE   NAME   AND  THE   SITUATION  9 

do  not  square  with  the  facts  of  life,  much  less  do 
they  interpret  life.  They  go  straight  in  the  teeth 
of  the  scientific  method,  which,  even  where  the 
Christian  facts  are  concerned,  is  the  only  method 
which  carries  weight  with  the  modern  mind.  The 
consequence  is  that  religion  has  come  to  be  thought 
of  as  something  apart  from  ordinary  everyday  life, 
a  matter  of  churches,  creeds,  and  Bible  readings, 
instead  of  what  it  really  is,  —  the  coordinating 
principle  of  all  our  activities.  To  put  the  matter 
in  a  nutshell,  —  popular  Christianity  (or  rather 
pulpit  and  theological  college  Christianity)  does 
not  interpret  life.  Consequently  the  great  world 
of  thought  and  action  is  ceasing  to  trouble  about 
it. 

Theologians  and  preachers  rarely  realise  the 
situation.  —  One  would  think  that  the  men  whose 
business  it  is  to  teach  religious  truth  would  see  this 
and  ask  themselves  the  reason  why.  To  an  extent 
they  do  see  it,  but  they  never  seem  to  think  of  blam- 
ing themselves  for  it  except  in  a  perfunctory  kind 
of  way.  They  talk  about  religious  indifference,  the 
need  for  better  and  more  effective  methods,  and  so 
on.  The  professional  theologian  rarely  does  even  as 
much  as  this.  He  takes  himself  very  seriously; 
sniffs  and  sneers  at  any  suggestion  of  deviation 
from  the  accepted  standards;  mounts  some  denomi- 
national chair  or  other  and  thunders  forth  his  view 
of  the  urgent  necessity  for  rehabilitating  truth  in 
the  grave-clothes  of  long-buried  formulas.  I  mean 


10  THE   NEW   THEOLOGY 

that  the  language  he  habitually  uses  implies  some 
kind  of  belief  in  formulas  he  no  longer  holds.  He 
hardly  dares  to  disinter  the  formulas  themselves, 
—  that  would  not  be  convenient  even  for  him,  — 
but  he  goes  on  flapping  the  shroud  as  energetically 
as  ever,  and  the  world  does  not  even  take  the  trouble 
to  laugh.  Wherever  and  whenever  religious  agen- 
cies succeed  it  is  rarely  because  of  the  driving  power 
of  what  is  preached,  but  because  the  preacher's 
gospel  is  glossed  over  or  put  in  the  background. 
We  have  popular  services  by  the  million  in  which 
devices  are  used  to  attract  the  public  which  ought 
not  to  be  necessary  if  their  framers  had  any  real 
message  to  declare.  But  they  have  not.  Popular 
pulpit  addresses  rarely  or  never  deal  with  the  funda- 
mental problems  of  life.  The  last  thing  one  ever 
expects  to  hear  in  such  addresses  is  a  real  living 
representation  of  the  beliefs  the  preacher  professes 
to  hold.  He  makes  passing  allusions  to  them,  of 
course,  such  as  appeals  to  come  to  the  cross,  and 
such  like,  but  they  generally  sound  unreal,  and  the 
pill  has  to  be  sweetly  sugared.  The  ordinary  way 
of  preaching  the  gospel  is  to  avoid  saying  much 
about  what  the  preacher  believes  the  gospel 
to  be. 

To  be  sure  there  are  many  social  activities  in 
connection  with  Christian  churches.  If  it  were  not 
for  these  the  churches  would  have  to  be  shut  up. 
They  are  quite  admirable  in  their  way,  and  often 
produce  excellent  results,  but  they  imply  another 


THE  NAME  AND  THE  SITUATION       II 

gospel  than  the  one  supposed  to  be  preached  from 
the  pulpits.  They  ignore  dogmatic  beliefs,  and 
assume  the  salvability  of  the  whole  race  and  the 
possibility  of  realising  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 
Wherever  the  churches  are  alive  to-day,  and  not 
merely  struggling  to  keep  their  heads  above  water, 
it  is  not  their  doctrine  but  their  non-theological 
human  sympathy  that  is  doing  it. 

This,  then,  is  the  situation.  The  main  stream  of 
modern  life  is  passing  organised  religion  by.  Where 
is  the  remedy  to  be  found  ? 

We  seek  to  save  religion  rather  than  the  Churches. 
— Let  me  say  plainly  that  I  do  not  think  our  object 
should  be  to  find  a  remedy  which  will  save  the 
churches.  That  would  be  putting  the  cart  before 
the  horse.  What  is  wanted  is  a  driving  force  which 
will  enable  the  churches  to  fulfil  their  true  mission 
of  saving  the  world,  or,  to  put  it  better  still,  will 
serve  to  bring  mankind  back  to  real  living  faith 
in  God  and  the  spiritual  meaning  of  life.  Hardly 
anyone  would  seriously  deny  that  the  world  is  wait- 
ing for  this.  Men  are  not  irreligious.  On  the  con- 
trary there  is  no  subject  of  such  general  interest 
as  religion ;  it  takes  precedence  of  all  other  subjects 
just  because  all  other  subjects  are  implied  in  it. 
Religion  is  man's  response  to  the  call  of  the  universe ; 
it  is  the  soul  turning  towards  its  source  and  goal. 
How  could  it  fail  to  be  of  absorbing  interest  ?  What 
is  wanted  is  a  message  charged  with  spiritual  power, 
"  Where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish."  Mere 


12  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

dogmatic  assertions  will  not  do.  The  word  of  God 
is  to  be  known  from  the  fact  that  it  illuminates  life 
and  appeals  to  the  deepest  and  truest  in  the  soul  of 
man.  That  message  is  here  now.  It  is  being 
preached,  not  by  one  man  only,  but  the  wide  world 
over.  God  has  spoken,  and  woe  betide  the  churches 
if  they  will  not  hear.  Religion  is  necessary  to  man- 
kind, but  churches  are  not.  From  every  quarter 
of  Christendom  a  new  spirit  of  hope  and  confidence 
is  rising,  born  of  a  conviction  that  all  that  is  human 
is  the  evidence  of  God,  and  that  Jesus  held  the  key 
to  the  riddle  of  existence.  Although  this  comes  to 
us  as  with  the  freshness  of  a  new  revelation,  it  is 
not  really  new.  It  is  the  spirit  which  has  been  the 
inspiration  of  every  great  religious  awakening  since 
the  world  began.  In  this  country  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  English-speaking  world  that  spirit  is  becoming 
associated  with  the  name  the  New  Theology.  To 
associate  it  with  any  one  personality  is  to  belittle 
the  subject  and  to  obscure  its  real  significance. 
There  are  many  brave  and  good  men  in  the  churches 
and  outside  the  churches  to-day,  men  of  true  pro- 
phetic spirit,  who  would  reject  utterly  the  name 
New  Theology,  but  who  are  thoroughly  imbued 
with  this  new-old  spirit  and  are  leading  mankind 
toward  the  light.  In  the  church  of  Rome  the  move- 
ment is  typified  by  men  like  Father  Tyrrell,  whose 
teaching  has  led  to  his  expulsion  from  the  Jesuit 
order,  but  not,  so  far,  from  the  priesthood.  The 
present  condition  of  the  church  of  Rome  is  not  un- 


THE   NAME   AND  THE   SITUATION  13 

hopeful  to  those  who  believe  as  I  do  that  that  ven- 
erable church  has  been  used  of  God  to  great  ends 
in  the  past  and  that  her  spiritual  vitality  is  by  no 
means  exhausted.  Father  Tyrrell  and  such  as  he 
are  nearer  in  spirit  to  the  New  Theology  men  than 
are  the  latter  to  those  Protestants  who  pin  their 
faith  to  external  standards  of  belief .  It  is  a  curious 
but  indisputable  fact  that  the  most  extreme  anti- 
Romanist  Protestants  are  themselves  hi  the  same 
boat  with  Rome :  they  insist  on  the  absolute  neces- 
sity for  external  authority  in  matters  of  belief  and 
are  unwilling  to  trust  the  individual  soul  to  recog- 
nise truth  as  it  comes.  In  all  the  churches  those 
who  believe  in  the  religion  of  the  Spirit  should  recog- 
nise one  another  as  brothers.  In  the  church  of 
England  a  large  and  increasing  band  of  men  are  look- 
ing in  this  direction  and  are  making  their  influence 
felt.  Of  these  perhaps  the  most  outstanding  is 
Archdeacon  Wilberforce,  but  he  is  by  no  means 
alone.  A  movement  has  begun  in  the  Lutheran 
church.  It  has  existed  for  a  long  time  in  French 
Protestantism  as  represented  by  the  late  Auguste 
Sabatier  and  his  friend  ReVille.  In  the  congrega- 
tional and  other  evangelical  churches  of  England 
and  America  the  same  attitude  is  being  taken  by 
many  who  are  not  even  aware  that  the  name  New 
Theology  is  being  apph'ed  to  it.  In  this  country 
the  movement  in  the  free  churches  is  typified  by 
men  like  the  Rev.  T.  Rhondda  Williams  of  Bradford. 
There  are  many  Unitarians  who  are  preaching  it; 


14  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

indeed,  there  are  some  who  would  assert  that  the  New 
Theology  is  only  Unitarianism  under  another  name. 
But,  as  I  shall  hope  to  show,  this  is  very  far  from 
being  the  case.  It  may  or  may  not  be  professed  by 
exponents  of  Unitarianism,  but  it  is  not  a  surrender 
to  Unitarianism. 

The  New  Theology  is  spiritual  socialism.  —  The 
great  social  movement  which  is  now  taking  place  in 
every  country  of  the  civilised  world  toward  universal 
peace  and  brotherhood  and  a  better  and  fairer  distri- 
bution of  wealth  is  really  the  same  movement  as  that 
which  in  the  more  distinctively  religious  sphere  is 
coming  to  be  called  the  New  Theology.  This  fact 
needs  to  be  realised  and  brought  out.  The  New 
Theology  is  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Neither  socialism  nor  any  other  economic  system 
will  permanently  save  and  lift  mankind  without 
definitely  recognised  spiritual  sanctions,  that  is,  it 
must  be  a  religion.  The  New  Theology  is  but  the 
religious  articulation  of  the  social  movement.  The 
word  "  theology  "  is  almost  a  misnomer;  it  is  essen- 
tially a  moral  and  spiritual  movement,  the  recog- 
nition that  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  a  great  religious 
and  ethical  awakening,  the  ultimate  results  of  which 
no  man  can  completely  foresee. 

And  also  the  religion  of  science.  —  Again,  the 
New  Theology  is  the  religion  of  science.  It  is  the 
denial  that  there  is,  or  ever  has  been,  or  ever  can  be, 
any  dissonance  between  science  and  religion;  it  is 
the  recognition  that  upon  the  foundations  laid  by 


THE   NAME   AND   THE   SITUATION  1 5 

modem  science  a  vaster  and  nobler  fabric  of  faith 
is  rising  than  that  world  has  ever  before  known. 
Science  is  supplying  the  facts  which  the  New  The- 
ology is  weaving  into  the  texture  of  religious  ex- 
perience. 


CHAPTER   H 

GOD  AND  THE   UNIVERSE 

What  religion  is.  —  All  religion  begins  in  cosmic 
emotion.  It  is  the  recognition  of  an  essential  re- 
lationship between  the  human  soul  and  the  great 
whole  of  things  of  which  it  is  the  outcome  and  ex- 
pression. The  mysterious  universe  is  always  call- 
ing, and,  in  some  form  or  other,  we  are  always 
answering.  The  artist  answers  by  trying  to  express 
his  feeling  of  its  beauty;  the  scientist  answers  by 
recognising  its  laws  and  unfolding  its  wonders; 
the  social  reformer  answers  by  his  self-denying 
labours  for  the  common  good.  In  each  and  every 
case  there  is  in  the  background  of  experience  a  con- 
viction that  the  unit  is  the  instrument  of  the  All; 
religion  is  implied  in  these  as  in  all  other  activities 
in  which  man  aims  at  a  higher-than-self.  But  re- 
ligion, properly  so-called,  begins  when  the  soul  con- 
sciously enters  upon  communion  with  this  higher- 
than-self  as  with  an  all-comprehending  intelligence; 
it  is  the  soul  instinctively  turning  toward  its  source 
and  goal.  Religion  may  assume  a  great  many  dif- 
ferent and  even  repellent  forms,  but  at  bottom  this 
is  what  it  always  is:  it  is  the  soul  reaching  forth 
to  the  great  mysterious  whole  of  things,  the  higher- 

16 


GOD    AND    THE    UNIVERSE  I'J 

than-self,  and  seeking  for  closer  and  ever  closer 
communion  therewith.  The  savage  with  his  totem 
and  the  Christian  saint  before  the  altar  have  this 
in  common :  they  are  reaching  through  the  things 
that  are  seen  to  the  reality  beyond. 

What  the  word  "God"  means.  —  But  what 
name  are  we  to  give  to  this  higher-than-self  whose 
presence  is  so  unescapable?  The  name  matters 
comparatively  little,  but  it  includes  all  that  the 
ordinary  Christian  means  by  God.  The  word 
"God  "  stands  for  many  things,  but  to  present-day 
thought  it  must  stand  for  the  un-caused  Cause  of 
all  existence,  the  unitary  principle  implied  in  all 
multiplicity.  Everyone  of  necessity  believes  in 
this.  It  is  impossible  to  define  the  term  completely, 
for  to  define  is  necessarily  to  limit,  and  we  are  think- 
ing of  the  illimitable.  But  we  ought  to  under- 
stand clearly  that  to  disbelieve  in  God  is  an  im- 
possibility; everyone  believes  in  God  if  he  believes 
in  his  own  existence.  The  blankest  materialist 
that  ever  lived,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  must 
have  affirmed  God  even  in  the  act  of  denying  Him. 
Professor  Haeckel  declares  his  belief  in  God  on 
every  page  of  his  "  Riddle  of  the  Universe,"  the 
famous  book  in  which  he  says  that  God,  Freedom, 
and  Immortality  are  the  three  great  buttresses  of 
superstition,  which  science  must  make  it  her  busi- 
ness to  destroy.  So  far  science  has  only  succeeded 
in  giving  us  a  vaster,  grander  conception  of  God  by 
giving  us  a  vaster,  grander  conception  of  the  uni- 
c 


1 8  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

verse  in  which  we  live.  When  I  say  God,  I  mean  the 
mysterious  Power  which  is  finding  expression  in 
the  universe,  and  which  is  present  in  every  tiniest 
atom  of  the  wondrous  whole.  I  find  that  this  Power 
is  the  one  reality  I  cannot  get  away  from,  for, 
whatever  else  it  may  be,  it  is  myself.  Theologians 
will  tell  me  that  I  have  taken  a  prodigious  leap  in 
saying  this,  but  I  cannot  help  it.  How  can  there 
be  anything  in  the  universe  outside  of  God  ?  What- 
ever distinctions  of  being  there  may  be  within  the 
universe  it  is  surely  clear  that  they  must  all  be 
transcended  and  comprehended  within  infinity. 
There  cannot  be  two  infinities,  nor  can  there  be  an 
infinite  and  also  a  finite  beyond  it.  What  infinity 
may  be  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  Here  the 
most  devout  Christian  is  just  as  much  of  an  agnostic 
as  Professor  Huxley ;  we  can  predicate  nothing  with 
confidence  concerning  the  all-comprehending  unity 
wherein  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being, 
save  and  except  as  we  see  it  manifested  in  that  part 
of  our  universe  which  lies  open  to  us.  One  would 
think  that  this  were  so  obvious  as  to  need  no  demon- 
stration. But  how  do  ordinary  church-going  Chris- 
tians talk  about  God?  They  talk  as  though  He 
were  (practically)  a  finite  being  stationed  somewhere 
above  and  beyond  the  universe,  watching  and  worry- 
ing over  other  and  lesser  finite  beings,  to  wit,  our- 
selves. According  to  the  received  phraseology 
this  God  is  greatly  bothered  and  thwarted  by  what 
men  have  been  doing  throughout  the  few  millenni- 


GOD    AND    THE    UNIVERSE  19 

urns  of  human  existence.  He  takes  the  whole  thing 
very  seriously,  and  thinks  about  little  else  than 
getting  wayward  humanity  into  line  again.  To 
this  end  He  has  adopted  various  expedients,  the 
chief  of  which  was  the  sending  of  His  only  begotten 
Son  to  suffer  and  die  in  order  that  He  might  be  free 
to  forgive  the  trouble  we  had  caused  Him.  I  hope 
no  reader  of  these  words  will  think  I  am  making 
light  of  a  sacred  subject;  I  never  was  more  serious 
in  my  life.  What  I  am  trying  to  show  is  that,  re- 
duced to  its  simplest  terms,  the  accepted  theology 
of  the  churches  to-day  is  pitiably  inadequate  as  an 
explanation  of  our  relationship  to  this  great  and 
mysterious  universe.  There  is  a  beautiful  spiritual 
truth  underneath  every  venerable  article  of  the 
Christian  faith,  but  as  popularly  presented  this  truth 
has  become  so  distorted  as  to  be  falsehood.  It 
narrows  religion  and  belittles  God.  It  is  dishonour- 
ing to  human  nature,  and  is  absolutely  ludicrous  as 
an  interpretation  of  the  cosmic  process.  Of  course, 
the  dogmatic  theologian  will  maintain  that  this  is 
a  caricature  of  the  way  in  which  the  relationship  of 
God  to  the  world  is  set  forth  in  religious  treatises 
and  from  the  Christian  pulpit.  But  is  it  ?  I  think 
I  can  appeal  with  confidence  to  the  thoughtful  man 
who  has  given  up  going  to  church  as  to  whether  it 
is  or  not.  The  God  of  the  ordinary  church-goer, 
and  of  the  man  who  is  supposed  to  teach  him  from 
study  and  pulpit,  is  an  antiquated  Theologian  who 
made  His  universe  so  badly  that  it  went  wrong  in 


20  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

spite  of  Him  and  has  remained  wrong  ever  since. 
Why  He  should  ever  have  created  it  is  not  clear. 
Why  He  should  be  the  injured  party  in  all  the  miser- 
ies that  have  ensued  is  still  less  clear.  The  poor 
crippled  child  who  has  been  maimed  by  a  falling 
rock,  and  the  white-faced  match-box  maker  who 
works  eighteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together  have  surely  some  sort  of  a 
claim  upon  God  apart  from  being  miserable  sinners 
who  must  account  themselves  fortunate  to  be  for- 
given for  Christ's  sake.  Faugh !  it  is  all  so  unreal 
and  so  stupid.  This  kind  of  God  is  no  God  at  all. 
The  theologian  may  call  Him  infinite,  but  in  practice 
He  is  finite.  He  may  call  Him  a  God  of  love,  but 
in  practice  He  is  spiteful  and  silly.  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  presently  about  the  twin  problems 
of  pain  and  evil ;  but  what  so-called  orthodoxy  has 
to  say  is  not  only  no  solution  of  them,  it  is  demon- 
strably  false  to  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

Every  man  believes  in  God.  —  For  the  moment 
what  I  want  to  make  clear  is  this.  No  man  should 
refuse  to  assert  his  belief  in  God  because  he  cannot 
bring  himself  to  believe  in  the  God  of  the  typical 
theologian.  Remember  that  the  real  God  is  the 
God  expressed  in  the  universe  and  in  yourself. 
The  question  is  not  whether  you  shall  believe  in 
God,  but  how  much  you  can  believe  about  Him. 
You  may  think  with  Haeckel  that  the  universe  is 
the  outcome  of  the  fortuitous  interaction  of  material 
forces  without  consciousness  and  definite  purpose 


GOD  AND   THE   UNIVERSE  21 

behind  them,  or  you  may  believe  that  the  cosmos 
is  the  product  of  intelligence  and  "  means  intensely 
and  means  good,"  but  you  cannot  help  believing  in 
God,  the  Power  revealed  in  it.  As  I  write  these 
words  I  am  seated  before  a  window  overlooking 
the  heaving  waste  of  waters  on  a  rock-bound  Cor- 
nish coast.  It  is  a  stormy  day.  The  sky  is  overcast 
toward  the  western  horizon;  on  the  east  shafts  of 
blue  and  saffron  have  pierced  the  pall  of  darkness 
and  flung  their  radiance  over  the  spreading  sea. 
The  total  effect  is  strangely  solemnising.  The  sug- 
gestion of  titanic  forces  conveyed  in  the  rush  of 
wind  and  wave  upon  the  unyielding  cliffs,  conjoined 
to  the  majestic  march  of  the  storm-clouds  across 
the  heaven  from  the  west,  is  somehow  elevated  and 
composed  by  the  mystic  light  that  streams  from  the 
east.  I  have  never  seen  anything  quite  like  it 
before.  It  tells  me  of  a  beneficent  stillness,  an 
eternal  strength,  far  above  and  beyond  these  finite 
tossings.  It  whispers  the  word  impossible  to  utter, 
the  word  that  explains  everything,  the  deep  that 
calleth  unto  deep.  So  my  God  calls  always  to  my 
deeper  soul,  and  tells  me  I  must  read  Him  by  mine 
own  highest  and  best,  and  by  the  highest  and  best 
that  the  universe  has  yet  produced.  Thus  the  last 
word  about  God  becomes  the  last  word  about  man : 
it  is  Jesus.  Materialists  may  tell  me  that  the  uni- 
verse does  not  know  what  it  is  doing,  that  it  goes  on 
clanking  and  banging,  age  after  age,  without  end 
or  aim,  but  I  shall  continue  to  feel  compelled  to 


22  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

believe  that  the  Power  which  produced  Jesus  must 
at  least  be  equal  to  Jesus.  So  Jesus  becomes  my 
gateway  to  the  innermost  of  God.  When  I  look  at 
Him  I  say  to  myself,  God  is  that,  and,  if  I  can  only 
get  down  to  the  truth  about  myself,  I  shall  find  I 
am  that  too. 

What  does  the  universe  mean  ?  —  But  why  is 
there  a  universe  at  all?  Why  has  the  unlimited 
become  limited?  What  was  the  need  for  the  long 
cosmic  struggle,  the  ignorance  and  pain,  the  appar- 
ently prodigal  waste  of  life  and  beauty?  Why  does 
a  perfect  form  appear  only  to  be  shattered  and  super- 
seded by  another?  What  can  it  all  mean,  if  indeed 
it  has  a  meaning?  This  is  what  thinkers  have  been 
asking  themselves  since  thought  began,  and  I  have 
really  nothing  new  to  say  about  it.  What  I  have -to 
say  leads  back  through  Hegelianism  to  the  old  Greek 
thinkers,  and  beyond  them  again  to  the  wise  men 
who  lived  and  taught  in  the  East  ages  before  Jesus 
was  born.  It  is  that  this  finite  universe  of  ours  is 
one  means  to  the  self-realisation  of  the  infinite. 
Supposing  God  to  be  the  infinite  consciousness,  there 
are  still  possibilities  to  that  consciousness  which  it 
can  only  know  as  it  becomes  limited.  Any  of  my 
readers  to  whom  this  thought  is  unfamiliar  have 
only  to  look  at  their  own  experience  in  order  to  see 
how  reasonable  it  is.  You  may  know  yourself  to 
be  a  brave  man,  but  you  will  know  it  in  a  higher 
way  if  you  are  a  soldier  facing  the  cannon's  mouth ; 
you  will  know  it  in  a  still  different  way  if  you  have 


GOD  AND  THE    UNIVERSE  23 

to  face  the  hostility  and  prejudice  of  a  whole  com- 
munity for  standing  by  something  which  you  believe 
to  be  right.  Perhaps  you  have  a  manly  little  son; 
he,  like  you,  may  believe  in  his  sterling  good  qualities. 
But  wait  till  he  has  gone  out  to  fight  his  way  in 
life;  then  you  will  realise  what  he  is  worth,  and 
so  will  he.  It  is  one  thing  to  know  that  you  are  a 
lover  of  truth ;  it  is  another  thing  to  realise  it  when 
your  immediate  interest  and  your  immediate  safety 
would  bid  you  hedge  and  lie.  Do  not  these  facts 
of  human  nature  and  experience  tell  us  something 
about  God  ?  To  all  eternity  God  is  what  He  is  and 
never  can  be  other,  but  it  will  take  Him  to  all  eter- 
nity to  live  out  all  that  He  is.  In  order  to  manifest 
even  to  Himself  the  possibilities  of  His  being  God 
must  limit  that  being.  There  is  no  other  way  in 
which  the  fullest  self-realisation  can  be  attained. 
Thus  we  get  two  modes  of  God,  —  the  infinite,  per- 
fect, unconditioned,  primordial  being;  and  the 
finite,  imperfect,  conditioned,  and  limited  being  of 
which  we  are  ourselves  expressions.  And  yet  these 
two  are  one,  and  the  former  is  the  guarantee  that  the 
latter  shall  not  fail  in  the  purpose  for  which  it  be- 
came limited.  Thus  to  the  question,  Why  a  finite 
universe?  I  should  answer,  Because  God  wants  to 
express  what  He  is.  His  achievement  here  is  only 
one  of  an  infinite  number  of  possibilities. 

"  God  is  the  perfect  poet 
Who  in  creation  acts  His  own  conceptions." 


24  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

This  is  an  end  worthy  alike  of  God  and  man. 
The  act  of  creation  is  eternal,  although  the  cosmos 
is  changing  every  moment,  for  God  is  ceaselessly 
uttering  Himself  through  higher  and  ever  higher 
forms  of  existence.  We  are  helping  Him  to  do  it 
when  we  are  true  to  ourselves;  or  rather,  which  is 
the  same  thing,  He  is  doing  it  in  us:  "The  Father 
abiding  in  me  doeth  His  works."  No  part  of  the 
universe  has  value  in  and  for  itself  alone;  it  has 
value  only  as  it  expresses  God.  To  see  one  form 
break  up  and  another  take  its  place  is  no  calamity, 
however  terrible  it  may  seem,  for  it  only  means  that 
the  life  contained  in  that  form  has  gone  back  to  the 
universal  life,  and  will  express  itself  again  in  some 
higher  and  better  form.  To  think  of  God  in  this 
way  is  an  inspiration  and  a  help  in  the  doing  of  the 
humblest  tasks.  It  redeems  life  from  the  dominion 
of  the  sordid  and  commonplace.  It  supplies  an 
incentive  to  endeavour,  and  fills  the  heart  with 
hope  and  confidence.  To  put  it  in  homely,  every- 
day phraseology,  God  is  getting  at  something  and 
we  must  help  Him.  We  must  be  His  eyes  and 
hands  and  feet;  we  must  be  labourers  together 
with  Him.  This  fits  in  with  what  science  has  to 
say  about  the  very  constitution  of  the  universe; 
it  is  all  of  a  piece;  there  are  no  gaps  anywhere. 
It  is  a  divine  experiment  without  risk  of  failure,  and 
we  must  interpret  it  in  terms  of  our  own  highest. 


CHAPTER   HI 

MAN   IN   RELATION   TO   GOD 

What  is  man  ?  —  So  far  we  have  seen  that  the 
universe,  including  ourselves,  is  one  instrument  or 
vehicle  of  the  self-expression  of  God.  God  is  All; 
He  is  the  universe  and  infinitely  more,  but  it  is  only 
as  we  read  Him  in  the  universe  that  we  can  know 
anything  about  Him.  We  have  seen,  too,  that  it  is 
by  means  of  the  universe  and  His  self-limitation 
therein  that  He  expresses  Himself  to  Himself.  Now 
what  is  our  relation  to  this  process  ?  What  are  we 
to  think  about  ourselves?  Who  or  what  are  we? 

A  witty  Frenchman  once  sardonically  remarked, 
"  In  the  beginning  God  created  man  in  His  own 
image,  and  man  has  ever  since  been  returning  the 
compliment  by  creating  God  in  his."  But  what  else 
can  we  do  ?  It  follows  from  what  has  already  been 
said  that  we  know  nothing  and  can  know  nothing 
of  God  except  as  we  read  Him  in  the  universe,  and 
we  can  only  interpret  the  universe  hi  terms  of  our 
own  consciousness.  In  other  words,  man  is  a 
microcosm  of  the  universe.  What  the  universe 
may  be  in  reality  we  do  not  know,  —  though  I  am 
not  so  sure  as  some  people  seem  to  be  that  appear- 
ance and  reality  do  not  correspond,  —  we  can  only 


26  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

know  it  in  so  far  as  it  produces  sense  images  on  our 
brain  and  enters  into  our  individual  consciousness. 
The  limits  of  my  subject  forbid  that  I  should  enter 
into  a  discussion  of  philosophic  idealism,  but  I 
think  I  ought  to  confess  at  once  that  I  can  only 
think  ot  existence  in  terms  of  consciousness:  noth- 
ing exists  except  in  and  for  mind.  The  mind  that 
thinks  the  universe  must  be  immeasurably  greater 
than  my  own,  but  in  so  far  as  I  too  am  able  to  think 
the  universe,  mine  is  one  with  it.  All  thinking 
starts  with  a  paradox,  even  the  famous  saying  of 
Descartes,  "I  think,  therefore  I  am";  and  my 
paradox  seems  at  least  as  reasonable  as  any  other, 
and  has  fewer  difficulties  to  encounter  than  most. 
I  start  then  with  the  assumption  that  the  universe 
is  God's  thought  about  Himself,  and  that  in  so  far 
as  I  am  able  to  think  it  along  with  Him,  "  I  and 
my  Father  (even  metaphysically  speaking)  are  one." 
It  cannot  be  demonstrated  beyond  dispute  that 
any  two  human  beings  think  the  same  universe. 
Strictly  speaking,  it  is  certain  that  they  do  not  in 
every  detail.  But  the  common  dominator  of  our 
experience,  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual,  is 
the  assumption  that  in  the  main  the  universe  is 
pretty  much  the  same  for  one  man  as  it  is  for  another. 
When  I  speak  of  the  rolling  sea,  my  neighbour  does 
not  understand  me  to  mean  the  waving  trees,  but  I 
cannot  prove  that  he  does  not.  If  he  is  consistent 
in  seeing  water  as  trees  and  trees  as  water,  his  mind 
must  be  constituted  differently  from  mine  and  yet 


MAN   IN    RELATION  TO   GOD  2J 

I  may  never  know  it.  So,  by  an  almost  unperceived 
act  of  faith,  we  have  to  take  for  granted  that  our 
separate  individualities  meet  and  become  one  to 
some  extent  in  our  common  experience  of  this  great 
universe,  which  is  at  that  same  time  the  expression 
of  God.  The  real  universe  must  be  infinitely 
greater  and  more  complex  than  the  one  which  is 
apparent  to  our  physical  senses.  This  becomes 
probable,  even  on  material  grounds,  the  moment  we 
begin  to  examine  into  the  nature  of  sense  perception. 
The  ear  is  constituted  to  hear  just  so  many  sounds; 
beyond  that  limit  at  either  end  of  the  scale  we  can 
hear  nothing,  but  that  does  not  prove  that  there  are 
no  more  sounds  to  hear.  Similarly  the  eye  can  dis- 
tinguish five  or  seven  primary  colours  and  their 
various  combinations;  beyond  that  limit  we  are 
colour-blind.  But  suppose  we  were  endowed  to 
hear  and  see  sounds  and  colours  a  million  times 
greater  in  number  than  those  of  which  we  have  at 
present  any  cognizance !  What  kind  of  a  universe 
would  it  be  then?  But  that  universe  exists  now; 
it  is  around  and  within  us;  it  is  God's  thought  about 
Himself,  infinite  and  eternal.  It  is  only  finite  to  a 
finite  mind,  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
spiritual  beings  exist  with  a  range  of  consciousness 
far  greater  than  our  own,  to  whom  the  universe  of 
which  we  form  a  part  must  seem  far  more  beautiful 
and  fuller  of  meaning  than  it  seems  to  us.  Imagine 
a  man  who  could  only  see  grey  hues  and  could  only 
hear  the  note  A  on  the  keyboard.  His  experience 


28  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

would  be  quite  as  real  as  ours,  and  indeed  the  same 
up  to  a  point,  but  how  little  he  would  know  of  the 
world  as  we  know  it.  The  glory  of  the  sunset  sky 
would  be  hidden  from  him;  for  him  the  melting 
power  of  the  human  voice,  or  of  a  grand  cathedral 
organ,  would  not  exist.  So,  no  doubt,  it  is  in  a 
different  degree  with  us  all.  The  so-called  material 
world  is  our  consciousness  of  reality  exercising  itself 
along  a  strictly  limited  plane.  We  can  know  just 
as  much  as  we  are  constituted  to  know,  and  no  more. 
But  it  is  all  a  question  of  consciousness.  The  larger 
and  fuller  a  consciousness  becomes,  the  more  it 
can  grasp  and  hold  of  the  consciousness  of  God, 
the  fundamental  reality  of  our  being  as  of  everything 
else. 

The  subconscious  mind.  —  Of  late  years  the 
comparatively  new  science  of  psychology  has 
begun  to  throw  an  amount  of  valuable  light  upon 
the  mystery  of  human  personality.  As  the  result 
of  numerous  experiments  and  investigations  into 
the  normal  and  abnormal  working  of  the  human 
mind,  psychologists  have  discovered  that  a  great 
deal  of  our  ordinary  mental  action  goes  on  without 
our  being  aware  of  it.  This  unconscious  cerebration, 
as  it  is  called,  can  hardly  be  seriously  disputed, 
for  every  new  addition  to  our  psychological  know- 
ledge goes  to  confirm  it.  Hence  we  are  hearing 
a  great  deal  about  the  subconscious  mind,  or  sub- 
liminal consciousness  as  some  prefer  to  call  it.  Now 
that  our  attention  has  been  directed  to  it,  we  are 


MAN   IN   RELATION   TO   GOD  29 

coming  to  see,  as  is  usual  with  every  new  discovery, 
that  after  a  fashion  we  knew  it  all  along.  The  sub- 
conscious mind  seems  to  be  the  seat  of  inspiration 
and  intuition.  Genius,  according  to  the  late  F.  W.  H. 
Myers,  is  "  an  up-rush  of  subliminal  faculty."  We 
have  all  heard  of  the  distinguished  lady  novelist 
who  declares  that  when  she  has  chosen  her  theme  she 
is  in  the  habit  of  committing  it  to  her  subconscious 
mind  and  letting  it  alone  for  a  while.  She  is  not 
aware  of  any  mental  process  which  goes  on,  but 
sooner  or  later  she  finds  that  the  theme  is  ripe  for 
treatment;  she  knows  what  she  thinks  about  it, 
and  the  work  of  stating  it  can  profitably  begin. 
Poets,  preachers,  and  musicians  can  bear  testimony 
of  a  somewhat  similar  kind.  The  thoughts  which 
are  most  valuable  are  those  which  come  unbidden, 
rising  to  the  surface  of  consciousness  from  unknown 
depths.  The  best  scientific  discoveries  are  made  in 
much  the  same  way;  the  investigator  has  an  intuition 
and  forthwith  sets  to  work  to  justify  it.  Reason, 
by  which  we  ordinarily  mean  the  conscious  exercise 
of  the  mental  faculties,  plods  along  as  if  on  four  feet ; 
intuition  soars  on  wings.  Truly  astonishing  things 
are  frequently  done  by  the  subconscious  mind 
superseding  and  controlling  the  conscious  mind  in 
exceptional  states  of  emotion,  especially  in  the  case 
of  people  who  are  not  quite  normal;  but  there  is  no 
one,  however  stolid  and  commonplace,  who  does 
not  owe  far  more  to  his  subliminal  consciousness 
than  he  does  to  what  he  calls  his  reason;  indeed 


30  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

reason  has  comparatively  little  to  do  with  the  way 
in  which  people  ordinarily  conduct  themselves, 
although  we  may  like  to  think  otherwise. 

Now  what  is  this  subconscious  mind  whose  im- 
portance is  so  great  and  of  whose  nature  we  know 
so  little  ?  That  is  a  question  upon  which  psychology 
has  not  yet  pronounced,  but  there  are  not  a  few  who 
regard  it  as  the  real  personality.  Evidently  it  is 
not  only  deeper  but  larger  than  the  surface  mind 
which  we  call  reason.  Our  discovery  of  its  existence 
has  taught  us  that  our  ordinary  consciousness  is  but 
a  tiny  corner  of  our  personality.  It  has  been  well 
described  as  an  illuminated  disc  on  a  vast  ocean  of 
being;  it  is  like  an  island  in  the  Pacific  which  is 
really  the  summit  of  a  mountain  whose  base  is  miles 
below  the  surface.  Summit  and  base  are  one,  and 
yet  no  one  realises  when  standing  on  the  little  island 
that  he  is  perched  at  the  very  top  of  a  mountain  peak. 
So  it  is  with  our  everyday  consciousness  of  ourselves ; 
we  find  it  rather  difficult  to  realise  that  this  conscious- 
ness is  not  all  there  is  of  us.  And  yet,  when  we  come 
to  examine  into  the  facts,  the  conclusion  seems 
irresistible,  that  of  our  truer,  deeper  being  we  are 
quite  unconscious. 

The  higher  self.  —  Several  important  inferences 
follow  from  this  position.  The  first  is  that  our 
surface  consciousness  is  somewhat  illusory  and  does 
not  possess  the  sharpness  and  definiteness  of  outline 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  take  for  granted  when 
thinking  of  ourselves.  To  ordinary  common  sense 


MAN  IN   RELATION   TO   GOD  31 

nothing  seems  more  obvious  than  that  we  know  most 
that  is  to  be  known  about  our  friend  John  Smith, 
with  whom  we  used  to  go  to  school  and  who  has 
since  developed  into  a  stolid  British  man  of  business 
with  few  ideas  and  a  tendency  toward  conservatism. 
John  is  a  stalwart,  honest,  commonplace  kind  of 
person,  of  whom  brilliant  things  were  never  prophe- 
sied and  who  has  never  been  guilty  of  any.  His 
wife  and  children  go  to  church  on  Sundays.  John 
seldom  goes  himself  because  it  bores  him,  but  he 
likes  to  know  that  religion  is  being  attended  to,  and 
he  does  not  want  to  hear  that  his  clergyman  is  at- 
tempting any  daring  flights.  He  has  a  good-natured 
contempt  for  clergymen  in  general  because  he  feels 
somehow  that,  like  women,  they  have  to  be  treated 
with  half-fictitious  reverence,  but  that  they  do  not 
count  for  much  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life;  they 
are  a  sort  of  third  sex.  But,  according  to  the  newer 
psychology,  this  matter-of-fact  Englishman  is  not 
what  he  seems  even  to  himself.  His  true  being  is 
vastly  greater  than  he  knows,  and  vastly  greater 
than  the  world  will  ever  know.  It  belongs  not 
to  the  material  plane  of  existence  but  to  the  plane  of 
eternal  reality.  This  larger  self  is  in  all  probability 
a  perfect  and  eternal  spiritual  being  integral  to  the 
being  of  God.  His  surface  self,  his  Philistine 
self,  is  the  incarnation  of  some  portion  of  that 
true  eternal  self  which  is  one  with  God.  The 
dividing  line  between  the  surface  self  and  the 
other  self  is  not  the  definite  demarcation  it  appears 


32  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

to  be.  To  the  higher  self  it  does  not  exist.  To 
us  it  must  seem  that  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
the  two  selves  in  a  man  are  two  separate  beings, 
but  that  is  not  so ;  they  are  one,  although  the  lower, 
owing  to  its  limitations,  cannot  realise  the  fact.  If 
my  readers  want  to  know  whether  I  think  that  the 
higher  self  is  conscious  of  the  lower,  I  can  only  answer, 
Yes,  I  do,  but  I  cannot  prove  it;  probabilities  point 
that  way.  What  I  want  to  insist  upon  here  is  that 
we  are  greater  than  we  seem,  that  we  have  a  higher 
self,  and  that  our  limited  consciousness  does  not 
involve  a  separate  individuality. 

Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting; 

The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar. 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 

But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God  who  is  our  home. 

The  great  poets  are  the  best  theologians  after  all, 
for  they  see  the  farthest.  The  true  being  is  con- 
sciousness; the  universe,  visible  and  invisible,  is 
consciousness.  The  higher  self  of  the  individual 
man  infolds  more  of  the  consciousness  of  God  than 
the  lower,  but  lower  and  higher  are  the  same  thing. 
This  may  be  a  difficult  thought  to  grasp,  but  the  time 
is  rapidly  approaching  when  it  will  be  more  generally 
accepted  than  it  is  now. 

The  unity  of  humanity.  —  Another  inference  from 


MAN  IN   RELATION  TO   GOD  33 

the  theory  of  the  subconscious  mind  is  that  of  the 
fundamental  unity  of  the  whole  human  race.  Indeed 
all  life  is  fundamentally  one,  but  there  is  a  kinship 
of  man  with  man  which  precedes  that  of  man  with 
any  other  order  of  being.  Here  again  the  spiritual 
truth  cuts  across  what  seem  to  be  the  dictates  of 
common  sense.  Common  sense  assumes  that  I  and 
Thou  are  eternally  distinct,  and  that  by  no  possibility 
can  the  territories  of  our  respective  beings  ever  be- 
come one.  But  even  now,  and  on  mere  everyday 
grounds,  we  are  finding  reason  to  think  otherwise. 
You  are  about  to  make  an  observation  at  table  and 
some  member  of  your  family  makes  it  before  you; 
you  are  thinking  of  a  certain  tune  and  someone  begins 
to  hum  it;  you  have  a  certain  purpose  in  mind  and, 
lo,  the  same  thought  finds  expression  in  someone 
else,  despite  all  probabilities.  Oh,  you  may  remark, 
This  is  only  thought  transference.  Precisely,  but 
what  are  you  except  your  thought?  All  being, 
remember,  is  conscious  of  being.  The  infinite 
consciousness  sees  itself  as  a  whole;  the  finite 
consciousness  sees  the  same  whole  in  part.  Ulti- 
mately your  being  and  mine  are  one  and  we  shall 
come  to  know  it.  Individuality  only  has  meaning 
in  relation  to  the  whole,  and  individual  consciousness 
can  only  be  fulfilled  by  expanding  until  it  embraces 
the  whole.  Nothing  that  exists  in  your  consciousness 
now  and  constitutes  your  self-knowledge  will  ever 
be  obliterated  or  ever  can  be,  but  in  a  higher  state  of 
existence  you  will  realise  it  to  be  a  part  of  the  univer- 


34  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

sal  stock.  I  shall  not  cease  to  be  I,  nor  you  to  be  you ; 
but  there  must  be  a  region  of  experience  where  we 
shall  find  that  you  and  I  are  one. 

The  Self  is  God.  —  A  third  inference,  already 
hinted  at  and  presumed  in  all  that  has  gone  before, 
is  that  the  highest  of  all  selves,  the  ultimate  Self 
of  the  universe,  is  God.  The  New  Testament  speaks 
of  man  as  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  The  body  is  the 
thought-form  through  which  the  individuality  finds 
expression  on  our  present  limited  plane;  the  soul 
is  a  man's  consciousness  of  himself  as  apart  from 
all  the  rest  of  existence  and  even  from  God — it  is  the 
bay  seeing  itself  as  the  bay  and  not  as  the  ocean ;  the 
spirit  is  the  true  being  thus  limited  and  expressed— 
it  is  the  deathless  divine  within  us.  The  soul  there- 
fore is  what  we  make  it;  the  spirit  we  can  neither 
make  nor  mar,  for  it  is  at  once  our  being  and  God's. 
What  we  are  here  to  do  is  to  grow  the  soul,  that  is  to 
manifest  the  true  nature  of  the  spirit,  to  build  up  that 
self-realisation  which  is  God's  objective  with  the 
universe  as  a  whole  and  with  every  self-conscious 
unit  in  particular. 

Where,  then,  someone  will  say,  is  the  dividing 
line  between  our  being  and  God's?  There  is  no 
dividing  line  except  from  our  side.  The  ocean  of 
consciousness  knows  that  the  bay  has  never  been 
separate  from  itself,  although  the  bay  is  only  con- 
scious of  the  ocean  on  the  outer  side  of  its  own  being. 
But,  the  reader  may  protest,  This  is  Pantheism. 
No,  it  is  not.  Pantheism  is  a  technical  term  in 


MAN    IN    RELATION   TO    GOD  35 

philosophic  parlance  and  means  something  quite 
different  from  this.  It  stands  for  a  Fate-God,  a  God 
imprisoned  in  His  universe,  a  God  who  cannot  help 
Himself  and  does  not  even  know  what  He  is  about, 
a  blind  force  which  here  breaks  out  into  a  rock  and 
there  into  Ruskin  and  is  equally  indifferent  to  either. 
But  that  is  not  my  God.  My  God  is  my  deeper 
Self  and  yours  too;  He  is  the  Self  of  the  universe 
and  knows  all  about  it.  He  is  never  baffled  and  can- 
not be  baffled ;  the  whole  cosmic  process  is  one  long 
incarnation  and  uprising  of  the  being  of  God  from 
itself  to  itself.  With  Tennyson  you  can  call  this 
doctrine  the  Higher  Pantheism  if  you  like,  but  it  is 
the  very  antithesis  of  the  Pantheism  which  has 
played  such  a  part  in  the  history  of  thought. 

Its  relation  to  free  will.  —  But  then,  another  will 
remonstrate,  it  does  away  with  the  freedom  of  the 
will.  Well,  here  is  a  slippery  subject  sure  enough, 
and  one  upon  which  more  nonsense  has  been  talked 
probably  than  any  other  within  the  range  of  phil- 
osophical or  theological  discussion.  Have  I  any- 
thing new  to  say  about  it?  Probably  not,  but  I 
think  I  can  focus  the  issue  and  show  what  we  must 
recognise  in  order  to  have  a  rational  grasp  of  the 
subject.  Thinkers  have  talked  too  much  in  the  past 
about  the  separate  faculties  of  human  nature  as 
though  they  could  be  divided  into  Reason,  Feeling, 
Action,  and  so  on.  But  they  are  beginning  to  talk 
differently  now.  They  are  coming  to  see  that  a 
human  being  cannot  be  cut  up  like  that.  The 


36  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

Reason  is  the  whole  man  thinking,  judging,  com- 
paring. Feeling  accompanies  Reason  and  is  never 
found  apart  from  it,  for  reason  implies  consciousness, 
and  without  consciousness  nothing  that  can  properly 
be  called  Feeling  exists.  The  will  is  simply  the  whole 
man  acting. 

Now  I  will  frankly  confess  that  in  strict  logic  I  can 
find  no  place  for  the  freedom  of  the  will.  I  will  defy 
anyone  to  do  so  if  he  knows  much  about  the  laws  of 
thought.  But,  as  the  late  Mr.  Lecky  said  in  his  "  Map 
of  Life,"  and  Mr.  Mallock  has  since  pointed  out  in 
"The  Reconstruction  of  Belief,"  we  are  compelled 
to  overleap  logic  when  considering  this  matter.  No 
argument  will  convince  us  that  we  have  not  some 
power  of  individual  self-direction  and  self-control. 
The  most  thoroughgoing  determinist  that  ever  lived 
forgets  his  determinism  even  while  he  argues  about 
it.  It  must  be  amusing  even  to  himself  to  see  how 
he  enjoys  scoring  off  his  opponent,  thus  taking  for 
granted  in  the  heat  of  controversy  the  very  freedom 
he  sets  out  to  deny.  The  assumption  at  the  bottom 
of  every  vigorous  argument  is  that  the  other  party 
might  have  held  other  views,  and  ought  to  have 
held  other  views  than  those  assailed.  The  position 
of  the  determinist  in  effect  is  this :  You  must  believe 
you  have  no  freedom  to  choose  anything,  otherwise 
you  are  to  blame  for  choosing  wrongly.  Of  course 
the  consistent  determinist  would  evade  this  reductio 
ad  absurdum  by  saying  that  he  is  as  much  neces- 
sitated in  blaming  his  opponent  for  holding  wrong 


MAN   IN   RELATION  TO   GOD  37 

views  as  the  opponent  is  for  refusing  to  give  them  up. 
He  might  also  tell  me  that  I  am  arguing  for  free 
will  in  an  obscurantist  fashion  by  admitting  at  the 
outset  that  in  strict  logic  I  can  find  no  place  for  it. 
But  I  am  not  arguing  for  free  will  at  all.  I  am  simply 
showing  that  by  the  very  constitution  of  our  minds  we 
cannot  avoid  taking  some  measure  of  free  will  for 
granted.  Even  the  determinist  who  scouts  this  view 
and  calls  it  absurd  is  by  his  own  action  a  convincing 
demonstration  of  its  truth. 

Only  the  Infinite  has  perfect  freedom.  —  But  this 
contention  is  something  more  than  mere  logic  chop- 
ping. It  points  to  a  truth  too  high  for  a  finite  mind 
to  grasp,  namely,  that  whatever  our  moral  freedom 
may  be,  it  must  consist  with  the  all-directing  uni- 
versal will.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  perfect  free- 
dom in  a  finite  being.  Perfect  freedom  belongs  only 
to  infinity;  finiteness  implies  limitations.  Popular 
theology  usually  assumes,  or  appears  to  assume, 
that  every  individual  is  a  perfectly  free  agent  able  at 
all  times  to  distinguish  and  to  choose  between  the 
higher  and  the  lower,  and  as  liable  to  choose  the  one 
as  the  other.  There  is  another  kind  of  theologising, 
of  course,  which  speaks  of  the  weakened  or  corrupted 
will  due  to  our  fallen  nature,  that  I  must  let  alone 
for  the  present.  What  I  want  to  point  out  is  that 
there  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  an  act  of  the  will 
in  which  a  man,  without  bias  in  either  direction,  has 
deliberately  chosen  evil  in  the  presence  of  good. 
Under  such  circumstances  no  being  in  his  sober 


38  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

senses  would  ever  choose  evil;  enlightened  self- 
interest  alone  would  forbid  the  possibility  of  such  a 
choice.  Freedom  of  the  will  in  this  sense  has  never 
existed.  The  truth  is  that  we  should  not  be  conscious 
of  the  possession  of  a  will  but  for  the  conflict  between 
desire  and  duty,  or  the  necessity  of  choosing  between 
one  impulse  and  another.  After  all,  the  moral 
choices  of  life  are  but  few  in  number.  The  things 
we  go  on  doing  day  by  day  are  the  things  that  for 
the  most  part  we  know  we  must  do,  and  we  scarcely 
reflect  upon  the  matter.  When  some  question 
emerges  which  demands  a  moral  choice  we  know  it  at 
once  by  the  fact  that  we  have  to  take  our  limitations 
into  account.  Something  has  to  be  overcome  if  the 
higher  is  chosen,  and,  without  that  overcoming, 
there  is  no  real  assertion  of  the  will.  It  is  no  heroism 
in  me  to  avoid  getting  drunk,  but  it  may  mean  a 
tremendous  assertion  of  the  moral  reserves  in  some 
poor  fellow  who  knows  the  power  of  the  drink  craving. 
The  same  observation  holds  good  of  all  human  life. 
My  weak  points  are  not  my  neighbour's,  and  his  are 
not  mine.  Neither  of  us  is  in  a  position  to  estimate 
the  other's  strength  of  will,  but  we  both  know  that  in 
our  own  case  an  absolutely  unfettered  moral  choice 
has  never  been  made.  But  for  our  limitations  and 
imperfections  we  should  know  nothing  whatever 
of  the  choice  between  right  and  wrong.  Free  will, 
in  the  sense  of  unlimited  freedom  of  choice,  does  not 
exist.  The  only  freedom  we  possess  is  like  that  of 
a  bird  in  a  cage;  we  can  choose  between  the  higher 


MAN    IN   RELATION   TO   GOD  39 

and  the  lower  standing  ground,  a  choice  called  for 
by  the  very  fact  that  we  are  in  prison,  but  we  cannot 
choose  where  the  cage  shall  go. 

No  doubt  these  considerations  will  meet  with 
the  disapproval  of  some  people  who  think  themselves 
orthodox.  They  will  object  to  being  told  that  every 
man  has  a  higher  self  than  that  of  which  he  is  im- 
mediately conscious;  that  fundamentally  the  indi- 
vidual is  one  with  the  whole  race  and  with  God; 
that  no  one  possesses  absolute  free  will.  To  them 
it  may  seem  an  absurdity  to  maintain  these  positions. 
But  if  they  say  so,  they  will  convict  themselves  of 
absurdity,  for,  with  the  exception  of  the  last,  Christian 
doctrine  already  affirms  the.n  all  of  Jesus.  Accord- 
ing to  the  received  theology,  Jesus  was  God,  and  yet 
He  did  not  possess  the  all-controlling  consciousness 
of  the  universe.  He  was  also  man,  and  yet  He  was 
before  all  ages.  All  creation  proceeds  from  and 
centres  in  Him,  and  yet  He  was  able  to  limit  Himself 
in  such  a  degree  as  to  be  ignorant  of  much  that  was 
going  on  in  His  own  universe.  If  so-called  ortho- 
doxy finds  it  no  difficulty  to  assert  these  things  as 
being  true  of  Jesus,  it  will  not  find  it  easy  to  show 
good  reason  why  the  same  should  not  be  true  of  all 
humanity.  For  the  moment  I  neither  assert  nor 
deny  the  uniqueness  of  Jesus.  All  I  am  concerned 
to  show  is  that  if  it  is  not  intellectually  impossible  to 
affirm  certain  things  about  the  consciousness  of  Jesus 
and  the  limitation  of  His  true  being  in  His  earthly 
life,  it  is  not  impossible  to  affirm  them  of  mankind. 


40  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

Some  of  my  critics  have  contended  that  this  view 
of  the  relationship  of  man  to  God  hails  not  from 
Palestine  but  from  Oxford  and  is  an  outcome  of  the 
philosophy  of  T.  H.  Green.  But  I  think  it  can 
be  shown  that  its  pedigree  is  considerably  longer 
than  that.  Whether  it  hails  from  Palestine  or  not, 
it  is  explicitly  stated  in  the  fourth  gospel:  "He 
that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father;  and  how 
sayest  thou  then,  Shew  us  the  Father?  Believest 
thou  not  that  I  am  in  the  Father,  and  the  Father  in 
me  ?  The  words  that  I  speak  unto  you  I  speak  not 
of  myself:  but  the  Father  that  dwelleth  in  me,  He 
doeth  the  works.  Believe  me  that  I  am  in  the  Father, 
and  the  Father  in  me."  Those  who  object  to  my 
statement  of  the  fundamental  identity  of  God  and 
man  will  have  to  explain  away  such  passages  as 
this,  and  there  are  plenty  of  them.  But,  it  may  be 
urged,  this  is  meant  to  apply  only  to  Jesus.  That 
I  do  not  believe;  I  think  the  exceedingly  able  writer 
of  the  fourth  gospel  knew  better;  but  for  the  moment 
I  will  not  contest  the  point.  Granted  that  it  does 
apply  only  to  Jesus,  what  then?  The  very  things 
which  the  critics  declare  to  be  impossible  of  person- 
ality in  general  in  relation  to  God,  they  are  affirming 
already  of  at  least  one  personality,  that  of  Jesus. 
If  Jesus  was  God  and  yet  prayed  to  God,  if  His  con- 
sciousness was  finite  and  yet  one  with  the  infinite, 
it  is  clear  that  in  this  one  instance  the  seemingly 
impossible  was  not  impossible.  Those  who  insist 
upon  the  fundamental  distinction  between  human 


MAN  IN  RELATION  TO   GOD  41 

personality  and  the  being  of  God  are  thus  on  the 
horns  of  a  dilemma.  Present-day  orthodoxy  can- 
not consistently  attack  this  position.  The  only 
telling  criticism  that  can  be  directed  against  it  is 
that  which  proceeds  from  the  side  of  scientific 
monism.  A  thoroughgoing  monist  might  reasonably 
contend  that  up  to  a  certain  point  I  have  been  arguing 
for  a  monistic  view  of  the  universe,  in  company  with 
practically  the  whole  scientific  world,  and  have  then 
given  the  case  away  by  admitting  a  certain  amount 
of  individual  freedom.  I  confess  it  looks  like  it; 
I  have  had  to  face  the  antinomy.  I  see  that  there 
is  no  escape  from  the  assertion  of  the  fundamental 
unity  of  all  existence,  and  yet  by  the  very  constitution 
of  the  human  mind  we  are  compelled  to  take  for 
granted  a  certain  amount  of  individual  initiative  and 
self-direction.  I  think  of  the  human  will  much  as 
I  do  about  the  mariner's  compass.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  needle  does  not  always  point  steadily  and 
consistently  to  the  pole;  its  tiny  aberrations  have 
to  be  taken  into  account.  But  these  are  no  real 
hindrance  to  the  sailing  of  the  ship,  and  the  compass 
itself  cannot  run  away. 

Again,  some  of  my  friends  have  been  pointing 
out  that,  while  the  New  Theology  regards  all  man- 
kind as  "  Being  of  one  substance  with  the  Father," 
our  consciousness  of  that  being  is  our  own.  I 
freely  admit  this  while  maintaining  that  there  is  no 
substance  but  consciousness.  What  other  kind  of 
substance  can  there  be  ?  Therefore  I  hold  that  when 


42  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

our  finite  consciousness  ceases  to  be  finite  there  will 
be  no  distinction  whatever  between  ours  and  God's. 
The  distinction  between  finite  and  infinite  is  not 
eternal.  The  being  of  God  is  a  complex  unity, 
containing  within  itself  and  harmonising  every  form 
of  self-consciousness  that  can  possibly  exist.  No 
one  need  be  afraid  that  in  believing  this  he  is  as- 
senting to  the  final  obliteration  of  his  own  personality; 
if  such  obliteration  were  possible,  our  present  per- 
sonality could  possess  no  permanent  value  even 
for  God.  No  form  of  self-consciousness  can  ever 
perish.  It  completes  itself  in  becoming  infinite, 
but  it  cannot  be  destroyed. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   NATURE   OF   EVIL 

The  problem  not  insoluble.  —  Before  going  on  to 
say  more  about  human  personality,  especially  the 
personality  of  Jesus,  it  is  requisite  that  we  should 
determine  our  atcitude  toward  a  great  question 
which  in  manifold  forms  has  beset  the  human  in- 
tellect ever  since  the  dawn  of  history,  namely,  the 
the  problem  of  evil.  It  is  still  the  fashion  to  declare 
this  problem  insoluble,  but  I  have  the  audacity 
to  believe  that  it  is  not  so;  mystery  there  may  be, 
but  it  is  not  chiefly  mystery.  I  will  even  go  so  far 
as  to  assert  that  the  problem  had  been  solved  in 
human  thought  before  Christianity  began.  What 
I  have  to  say  about  it  now  is  ancient  thinking  con- 
firmed by  present-day  experience. 

Evil  is  a  negative,  not  a  positive  term.  It  denotes 
the  absence  rather  than  the  presence  of  something. 
It  is  the  perceived  privation  of  good,  the  shadow 
where  the  light  ought  to  be.  "The  devil  is  a  vac- 
uum," as  a  friend  of  mine  once  remarked  to  the  no 
small  bewilderment  of  a  group  of  listeners  in  whose 
imagination  the  devil  was  anything  but  a  vacuum. 
Evil  is  not  an  intruder  in  an  otherwise  perfect  uni- 
verse; finiteness  presumes  it.  A  thing  is  only  seen 

43 


44  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

to  be  evil  when  the  capacity  for  good  is  present  and 
unsatisfied.  Evil  is  not  a  principle  at  war  with  good. 
Good  is  being  and  evil  is  not-being.  When  con- 
sciousness of  being  seeks  further  expression  and 
finds  itself  hindered  by  its  limitations,  it  becomes 
aware  of  evil. 

A  little  reflection  ought  to  convince  anyone  that 
this  is  the  true  way  to  look  at  the  question  of  evil. 
Instead  of  asking  how  evil  came  to  be  in  the  universe, 
we  should  recognise  that  nothing  finite  can  exist  with- 
out it.  Infinity  alone  can  know  rothing  of  evil  be- 
cause its  resources  are  illimitable  and  —  if  I  may  be 
permitted  the  expression  —  every  need  is  supplied 
before  it  can  be  felt.  Evil  and  good  are  not  like 
two  armies  in  deadly  conflict  with  each  other  for 
the  possession  of  the  city  of  God.  We  ought  not  to 
say  that  when  one  is  in  the  other  is  out,  but  rather 
when  one  is  the  other  is  not.  The  very  word  "good  " 
implies  evil.  One  is  positive  and  the  other  negative. 
Good  only  emerges  in  our  experience  in  contrast  with 
evil,  and  the  ideal  existence  must  be  that  in  which 
good  and  evil  are  both  transcended  in  the  life  eternal, 
when  struggle  and  conflict  are  no  more.  In  our 
present  state  of  existence  evil  is  necessary  in  order 
that  we  may  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  good, 
and  therefore  that  we  may  realise  the  true  nature 
of  the  life  eternal.  Look  at  that  shadow  on  the  pave- 
ment cast  by  the  row  of  houses  between  your  vision 
and  the  rising  sun.  Until  the  sun  made  his  presence 
felt,  you  did  not  even  know  there  was  a  shadow. 


THE   NATURE  OF   EVIL  45 

Presently  as  the  light  giver  climbs  beyond  and  above 
this  temporary  barrier  you  will  watch  the  shadow 
shrink  and  disappear.  Where  has  it  gone?  If  it 
were  an  entity  in  itself,  it  would  have  moved  off 
somewhere  else,  but  you  are  well  aware  that  it  has 
not  done  so,  for  it  never  had  any  real  existence; 
real  as  it  seemed,  so  real  that  you  were  able  to  give 
it  a  name,  it  never  did  more  than  show  the  place  that 
needed  to  be  filled  with  light.  When  the  light  came 
the  shadow  was  swallowed  up.  So  it  is  with  every 
kind  of  evil,  no  matter  what.  Your  perception  of 
evil  is  the  concomitant  of  your  expanding  finite  con- 
sciousness of  good.  The  moment  you  see  a  thing 
to  be  wrong  you  have  affirmed  that  you  know,  how- 
ever vaguely,  what  is  required  to  put  it  right.  Even 
when  evil  comes  in  the  form  of  a  calamity  that 
lessens  and  diminishes  your  previous  experience  of 
good,  as  in  an  earthquake  or  a  pestilence,  this  state- 
ment as  to  its  true  nature  is  in  no  way  invalidated. 
It  is  not  a  thing  in  itself,  it  is  only  the  perceived 
privation  of  what  you  know  to  be  good,  and  which 
you  know  to  be  good  because  of  the  very  presence 
of  limitation,  hindrance,  and  imperfection. 

The  relation  of  evil  and  pain.  —  But  to  most 
minds  evil  is  almost  synonymous  with  pain,  at  any 
rate  in  our  experience  it  is  associated  with  pain. 
When  men  begin  questioning  the  goodness  of  God 
because  of  the  evil  of  the  world,  they  usually  mean 
the  pain  of  the  world.  Perhaps  their  thought  about 
sin  is  to  some  extent  an  exception;  sin  and  pain  are 


46  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

not  necessarily  immediately  associated  in  the  theo- 
logical mind.  But  what  is  pain  ?  Properly  speak- 
ing it  is  not  in  itself  evil,  but  rather  the  evidence  of 
evil,  and  also  in  a  different  way  the  evidence  of  good. 
Pain  is  life  asserting  itself  against  death,  the  higher 
struggling  with  the  lower,  the  true  with  the  false, 
the  real  with  the  unreal.  When  a  baby  cries  for 
food  he  does  so  in  unconscious  obedience  to  the 
law  of  life ;  a  stone  does  not  cry  for  food.  When  a 
strong  man  suffers  in  the  grip  of  a  fell  disease,  the 
life  within  him  is  fighting  for  expression  against 
something  that  seems  to  be  extinguishing  it.  The 
suffering  is  caused  by  the  effort  of  the  life  to  retain 
its  hold  on  the  form,  and  yet  if  the  disease  succeeds 
in  breaking  the  form  it  has  only  released  the  life 
to  find  expression  in  some  higher  form.  When  a 
guilty  man  suffers  the  tortures  of  remorse,  it  means 
that  the  truth  within  him  is  declaring  itself  against 
the  falsehood,  although  it  does  not  follow  that  it  will 
immediately  conquer.  This  is  what  pain  is:  it  is 
life  pressing  upon  death,  and  death  resisting  life. 
If  a  traveller  falls  asleep  in  the  snow,  or  a  sailor  is 
nearly  drowned,  the  process  of  recovery  is  always 
painful  because  the  returning  life  has  to  overcome 
death.  Carry  the  same  principle  through  the  whole 
range  of  human  experience,  physical,  mental,  and 
moral,  and  it  will  indicate  the  real  significance  of  all 
the  pain  which  has  ever  been  endured  or  ever  will 
be  endured  by  mankind. 
Still  this  would  not  satisfy  everyone  who  feels 


THE  NATURE   OF   EVTL  47 

compassion  for  cosmic  suffering.  Professor  Huxley 
has  told  us  that  there  is  no  sadder  story  than  the 
story  of  sentient  life  upon  this  planet,  and  in  so 
saying  he  has  the  testimony  of  modern  science  behind 
him.  A  vast  amount  of  attention  has  been  directed 
to  this  phase  of  the  subject  within  the  past  fifty 
years.  We  seem  to  be  more  sensitive  to  the  presence 
of  pain  as  well  as  more  sympathetic  than  our  fathers 
were,  and  this  tendency  shows  itself  in  a  recognition 
of  the  solidarity  of  humanity  with  the  lower  creation. 
Theology  has  had  practically  nothing  to  say  about 
the  suffering  or  even  about  the  significance  of  the 
myriad  forms  of  life  which  exist  below  the  human 
scale.  But  why  ought  they  to  be  ignored  ?  Indeed, 
how  can  they  be  ignored?  The  theology  that  has 
nothing  to  say  about  my  clever  and  loyal  four-footed 
companion,  with  his  magnanimity,  his  sensitive 
spirit,  and  even  his  moral  qualities,  omits  something 
of  considerable  importance  to  a  thorough  and  con- 
sistent world- view.  "Not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the 
ground  without  your  Father,"  said  one  who  spake 
as  never  man  spake.  I  think  it  was  Schopenhauer 
who  once  remarked,  "The  more  I  see  of  human 
nature  the  more  I  respect  my  dog."  Now  the 
New  Theology  finds  no  difficulty  in  recognising  the 
importance  of  the  brute  creation,  for  it  believes  in  a 
practical  recognition  of  the  solidarity  of  all  existence. 
There  is  no  life  that  is  not  of  God,  and  therefore  no 
life  can  ever  perish,  whatever  may  become  of  the 
form.  If  we  can  explain  human  suffering,  the  same 


45  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

explanation  covers  the  suffering  of  all  sub-human 
life. 
The  true  extent  of  the  problem  of  pain.  —  But 

the  problem  is  not  so  large  as  it  looks.  When  we 
hear  of  a  terrible  event  like  the  Jamaica  disaster, 
we  are  apt  to  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  the  amount 
of  suffering  in  the  world  is  specially  and  enormously 
greater  because  of  it.  But  that  is  not  so.  Our 
standard  of  measurement  is  a  false  one.  The  amount 
of  pain  endured  depends  upon  the  consciousness 
enduring  it  and  upon  its  capacity  for  looking  before 
and  after.  Besides  we  only  suffer  individually, 
and  therefore  all  the  pain  of  the  world  is  comprised 
within  the  experience  of  the  being  who  suffers  most, 
whoever  that  may  be.  We  ought  to  estimate  the 
actual  amount  of  cosmic  suffering  by  the  intensity 
of  the  suffering  borne  by  any  one  individual  at  any 
one  time.  We  are  not  immediately  conscious  of 
all  the  woe  of  the  universe;  we  are  each  of  us  con- 
scious of  our  own,  even  though  it  may  be  caused  by 
sympathy  with  others;  and  the  world's  woe  taken 
as  a  whole  is  not  greater  than  the  amount  borne  by 
him  whose  consciousness  of  it  is  greatest.  This  is 
what  we  may  call  the  intensive  as  contrasted  with 
the  extensive  observation  of  the  problem  of  pain. 
It  is  a  kind  of  barometrical  measurement.  We  do 
not  gauge  the  weather  by  adding  together  the  figures 
of  all  the  storm-glasses  in  the  world;  the  rise  or 
fall  of  the  mercury  in  any  one  of  them,  especially 
the  best  one  among  them,  comprehends  the  whole. 


THE   NATURE  OF   EVIL  49 

Here  is  the  problem  of  pain  in  a  nutshell.  The 
whole  appalling  tale  of  cosmic  suffering  can  be 
compressed  within  the  limits  of  the  individual  con- 
sciousness which  has  endured  the  most. 

The  purpose  of  pain.  —  Nor  is  there  the  slightest 
need  to  be  afraid  of  it.  Theologians  may  tell  us 
that  we  should  never  have  known  anything  about  it 
but  for  man's  first  disobedience,  and  humanists 
may  maintain  that  it  is  impossible  to  reconcile  it 
with  belief  in  the  goodness  of  God ;  but  they  are  both 
wrong.  There  are  some  things  impossible  even  to 
omnipotence,  and  one  of  them  is  the  realisation  of 
a  love  which  has  never  known  pain.  If  creation 
is  the  self-expression  of  God,  pain  was  inevitable 
from  the  first.  For  what  is  the  nature  of  God? 
According  to  the  Christian  religion  it  is  love.  And 
what  is  love?  Here  is  another  slippery  word  which 
has  had  some  contradictory  connotations  in  the 
course  of  its  history.  Some  time  ago  Mr.  G.  Bernard 
Shaw  delivered  a  lecture  at  the  City  Temple  on  the 
"  Religion  of  the  British  Empire,"  in  the  course 
of  which  he  said  that,  if  I  knew  as  much  about 
stage-plays  as  he  did,  I  should  distrust  the  word 
"  love,"  for  it  was  bound  up  with  an  amount  of  false 
and  gusty  sentiment.  He  himself  preferred  the  word 
"  life"  to  express  what  I  meant  by  the  word  "  love." 
But  love  is  too  good  a  word  to  be  given  over  to  the 
sentimentalists,  although  Mr.  Shaw  was  perfectly 
right  as  to  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  misused. 
Love  is  life,  the  life  eternal,  the  life  of  God.  Jesus 


50  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

and  His  New  Testament  followers  used  both  terms 
as  expressive  of  the  innermost  of  God.  The  life  of 
God  is  such  that  in  the  presence  of  need  it  must 
give  itself  just  as  water  will  run  down  hill;  this  is 
the  law  of  its  being.  Where  no  need  exists,  that  is, 
where  life  is  infinite,  love  finds  no  expression.  To 
realise  itself  for  what  it  is,  sacrifice,  that  is  self- 
limitation,  becomes  necessary.  Love  is  essentially 
self-giving.  It  is  the  living  of  the  individual  life 
in  terms  of  the  whole.  In  a  finite  world  this  cannot 
but  mean  pain,  but  it  is  also  self-fulfilment.  "  Who- 
soever shall  save  his  life  shall  lose  it,  but  whosoever 
will  lose  his  life  shall  find  it."  This  profound  saying 
of  Jesus  is  older  even  than  Jesus;  it  is  the  law  of 
God's  own  being,  the  law  of  love,  the  means  to  the 
realisation  of  the  life  eternal.  It  is  so  plain  and 
simple,  and  withal  so  sublime,  that  we  cannot  but 
see  it  to  be  true,  and  can  do  no  other  than  bow 
before  it.  The  law  of  the  universe  is  the  law  of 
sacrifice  in  order  to  self-manifestation.  In  this 
age-long  process  all  sentient  life  has  its  part,  for  it 
is  of  the  infinite,  and  to  the  infinite  it  will  return. 
When,  therefore,  you  feel  compassion  for  the  rabbit 
which  is  being  killed  by  the  weasel,  or  the  stag 
that  falls  before  the  hounds,  you  can  remember 
at  the  same  time  that  this  is  not  meaningless  cruelty, 
but  the  operation  of  the  same  law  that  governs  the 
highest  activities  of  your  own  soul.  You  are  right 
to  feel  the  compassion;  you  were  meant  to  feel  it; 
and  there  is  good  reason  why  you  should,  for  the 


THE   NATURE   OF  EVIL  51 

suffering  is  real  enough  to  awaken  it.  But  do  not 
forget  that  the  suffering  is  not  quite  what  it  appears 
to  you;  it  is  only  yours  as  it  enters  into  your  own 
consciousness  and  you  suffer  along  with  the  actual 
victim.  Compassion  in  such  a  case  is  the  initial 
impulse  toward  self-offering,  the  desire  to  take  the 
victim's  place.  But  the  suffering  of  the  rabbit  or 
the  stag  is  to  be  measured  by  the  consciousness  of 
the  rabbit  or  the  stag,  not  by  yours.  In  the  slaugh- 
ter nothing  perishes  but  the  form,  the  life  returns 
to  the  Soul  of  the  universe. 

The  nature  of  sin.  —  What,  then,  is  sim  ?  In 
the  light  of  the  foregoing  considerations  that  ques- 
tion should  not  be  difficult  to  answer.  Some  of 
my  recent  critics  have  been  declaring  that  I  deny 
the  existence  of  sin,  and  am  teaching  that  as  there 
is  no  sin  there  is  no  need  for  Atonement.  This 
looks  like  wilful  misrepresentation,  for  my  words 
on  the  subject  have  been  clear  enough  and  I  have 
nothing  to  un-say,  but  perhaps  it  would  be  better 
to  allow  that  the  critics  have  made  the  mistake 
of  rushing  into  print  without  carefully  examining 
the  utterances  which  they  denounce.  Let  me  say, 
then,  that  sin  is  the  opposite  of  love.  All  possible 
activities  of  the  soul  are  between  two  poles,  —  self 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  common  life  on  the  other. 
Everything  we  can  think  or  say  or  do  is  in  one  or 
other  of  these  directions;  we  are  either  living  for 
the  self  at  the  expense  of  the  whole,  or  we  are  ful- 
filling the  self  by  serving  the  whole.  Sin  is  there- 


52  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

fore  selfishness.  If  the  true  life  is  the  life  which  is 
lived  in  terms  of  the  whole,  then  the  sinful  life  is  the 
life  which  is  lived  for  self  alone.  No  man,  however 
depraved,  succeeds  in  living  the  selfish  life  all  the 
time;  if  he  did  he  would  sink  below  the  level  of  the 
brutes.  Sin  makes  for  death;  love  makes  for  life. 
Sin  is  self- ward;  love  is  All- ward.  Sin  is  always 
a  blunder;  in  the  long  run  it  becomes  its  own  pun- 
ishment, for  it  is  the  soul  imposing  f etters'upon  itself, 
which  fetters  must  be  broken  by  the  reassertion  of 
the  universal  life.  Sin  is  actually  a  quest  for  life, 
but  a  quest  which  is  pursued  in  the  wrong  way. 
The  man  who  is  living  a  selfish  life  must  think,  if 
he  thinks  about  it  at  all,  that  he  can  gratify  himself 
in  that  way,  that  is,  he  can  get  more  abundant  life. 
But  in  this  he  is  mistaken;  he  is  trying  to  cut  him- 
self off  from  the  source  of  life.  He  is  like  a  man 
seated  on  the  branch  of  a  tree  and  sawing  it  off 
from  the  trunk.  But  when  theologians  talk  of  the 
wrath  of  God  against  sin,  and  the  wrong  which 
sin  has  inflicted  upon  God,  they  employ  figures  of 
speech  which  are  distinctly  misleading.  In  fact, 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  a  clear  idea  as  to  what 
sin  really  is.  They  use  vague  language  about  it 
as  though  it  were  some  kind  of  corporate  offence 
against  God  of  which  the  whole  race  has  been 
guilty  without  being  able  to  help  it,  and  which  no 
individual  can  escape  although  he  is  as  much  to 
blame  as  if  he  could.  But  sin  has  never  injured 
God  except  through  man.  It  is  the  God  within 


THE   NATURE   OF   EVIL  53 

who  is  injured  by  it  rather  than  the  God  without. 
It  is  time  we  had  done  with  the  unreal  language 
about  the  Judge  on  the  great  white  throne,  whose 
justice  must  be  satisfied  before  His  mercy  can 
operate.  The  figure  contains  a  truth  which  every- 
one knows  well  enough,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  recognise 
it  under  this  form. 

The  Fall. — The  theological  muddle  is  largely 
caused  by  the  inability  of  many  people  to  free  them- 
selves from  archaic  notions  which  have  really  noth- 
ing to  do  with  Christianity,  although  they  have 
been  imported  into  it.  The  principal  of  these,  in 
relation  to  the  question  of  sin,  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  Fall.  This  doctrine  has  played  a  mischievous 
part  in  Christian  thought,  more  especially  perhaps 
since  the  Reformation.  In  broad  outline  it  is  as 
follows:  Man  was  created  originally  innocent  and 
pure,  —  for  what  reason  is  not  quite  clear,  but  it 
is  said  to  be  for  the  glory  of  God,  —  but  by  an  act 
of  disobedience  to  a  divine  command  he  fell  from 
his  high  estate  and  in  his  fall  dragged  down  the 
whole  creation  and  blighted  posterity.  Things 
have  been  wrong  ever  since,  and  God  has  been  angry 
not  only  with  the  original  transgressor  but  with  all 
his  descendants.  God  is  a  God  of  righteousness 
and  therefore  in  a  future  world  He  will  torture  every 
human  being  who  dies  without  availing  himself 
of  a  certain  "  plan  of  salvation  "  designed  to  give 
him  a  chance  of  escape.  This  is  a  queer  sort  of 
righteousness !  The  plan  of  salvation  consists  in 


54  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

sending  His  own  Son  —  a  Son  who  has  existed 
eternally,  which  the  rest  of  us  have  not  —  to  live 
a  few  years  on  earth  and  go  through  a  certain  pro- 
gramme ending  with  a  violent  death.  In  considera- 
tion of  this  death,  God  undertakes  to  forgive  His 
erring  children,  who  could  not  help  being  sinners, 
and  yet  are  just  as  much  to  blame  as  if  they  could, 
but  only  on  consideration  that  they  "  believe " 
in  time  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come.  If  they 
happen  to  die  half  a  minute  too  late,  repentance 
will  be  of  no  avail. 

Dogmatic  theologians  must  really  excuse  me  for 
paraphrasing  their  words  in  this  way.  I  know  they 
do  not  put  the  case  with  such  irritating  clearness, 
but  this  is  what  they  mean.  Their  forefathers 
used  to  put  it  plainly  enough.  Turn  up  John 
Knox's  "  Confession  of  Faith,"  for  instance,  and  it 
will  be  found  that  my  statement  of  the  case  is  mild- 
ness itself  compared  to  his;  John  saw  no  necessity 
for  mincing  matters.  It  may  be  contended  that  no 
orthodox  theologian  of  any  repute  now  believes 
in  an  actual  historical  fall  of  the  race.  Perhaps 
not,  but  theological  writers  go  on  using  language 
which  implies  it  and  so  do  preachers  of  the  gospel. 
I  do  not  mean  that  they  are  dishonest,  but  they 
cannot  get  their  perspective  right.  They  think 
that  by  giving  up  belief  in  a  historical  fall  of  the  race 
they  would  have  to  give  up  a  great  deal  more. 
Without  the  Fall  they  do  not  know  what  to  say  about 
sin,  salvation,  the  Atonement,  etc.  They  are  mis- 


THE    NATURE   OF   EVIL  55 

taken  in  this  supposition,  as,  I  trust  I  have  already 
shown  to  some  extent  when  discussing  the  question 
of  sin,  and  as  I  shall  hope  to  show  more  clearly  still 
when  we  come  to  deal  with  the  Atonement.  What 
I  now  wish  to  insist  upon  is  that  it  is  absolutely  im- 
possible for  any  intelligent  man  to  continue  to  believe 
in  the  Fall  as  it  is  literally  understood  and  taught. 
The  Genesis  account.  —  It  is  popularly  sup- 
posed that  the  doctrine  is  derived  from  the  book 
of  Genesis,  but  that  is  hardly  the  case.  No 
doubt  the  Genesis  myth  about  Adam  and  Eve 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden  forms  the  background  of  it, 
but  it  is  not  consonant  with  the  doctrine  itself. 
The  Genesis  narrative  says  nothing  about  the  ruined 
creation  or  the  curse  upon  posterity.  There  is  no 
hint  of  individual  immortality,  much  less  of  heaven 
and  hell;  no  Christ,  no  cross,  no  future  judgment, 
no  vicarious  Atonement.  It  is  a  composite  primi- 
tive story.  A  careful  examination  of  its  constitu- 
ents will  show  that  more  than  one  account  of  the 
event  has  been  drawn  upon  to  supply  materials  for 
the  narrative  as  it  now  stands.  The  legend  was 
in  existence  as  oral  tradition  ages  before  it  became 
literature.  How  old  it  may  be  we  have  no  means 
of  knowing  with  certainty,  but  the  parallel  stories  in 
other  Semitic  religions  are  of  great  antiquity  and 
had  originally  no  ethical  significance  whatever.  The 
Genesis  story  of  the  Fall  exercised  no  influence  upon 
Old  Testament  religion;  it  is  scarcely  alluded  to  in 
the  best  Old  Testament  writings,  some  of  them  earlier 


56  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

probably  than  the  Genesis  account  itself.  It  was 
not  until  after  the  great  captivity  that  it  showed 
any  tendency  toward  becoming  an  article  of  faith. 
At  the  time  when  Jesus  was  born  it  had  passed  into 
the  popular  Jewish  religion.  There  is  a  psycho- 
logical reason  for  the  gradual  transformation  of  a 
primitive  legend  into  a  religious  dogma.  The  Jewish 
nation  has  fallen  upon  evil  days.  For  generations 
after  the  great  captivity  they  had  been  ground  under 
the  heel  of  a  succession  of  foreign  masters.  Under 
the  cruel  rule  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  about  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  B.C.,  their  very  religion 
seemed  likely  to  be  crushed  out  by  merciless  perse- 
cution. It  was  no  wonder  that  the  serious  minds 
of  the  day  became  inclined  to  look  upon  the  present 
as  being  but  the  ruin  of  the  past,  the  sorry  remainder 
of  what  had  once  been  an  ideal  world.  This  ten- 
dency showed  itself  in  various  ways,  the  chief  of 
which  was  a  looking  back  to  the  great  days  of  David 
and  Solomon  as  the  period  of  Israel's  brightest 
splendour  and  prosperity.  Of  this  I  must  say  a  little 
more  presently  when  we  come  to  consider  the  genesis 
of  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Another  way  in 
which  the  same  tendency  showed  itself  was  that  of 
taking  the  legend  of  the  Fall  more  or  less  literally. 
A  suffering  generation  could  hardly  help  thinking 
of  their  woes  as  being  the  result  of  some  primitive 
act  of  transgression.  This  is  the  way  in  which  the 
rabbis  came  to  speak  of  the  Fall  as  being  an  actual 
fact  of  religious  and  ethical  importance. 


THE   NATURE   OF   EVIL  57 

The    doctrine    transferred    to    Christianity.  —  A 

similar  set  of  political  and  social  conditions  carried 
the  doctrine  over  into  Christianity,  chiefly  through 
the  influence  of  the  apostle  Paul  who  had  received 
a  rabbinical  training.  Not  only  Hebrews  but  Greeks 
had  begun  to  feel  that  the  world  was  decaying  and 
perhaps  nearing  the  end.  They  idealised  the  past 
and  contrasted  it  with  the  present.  All  civilisation 
lay  under  the  dominion  of  Rome,  and  Rome  herself 
was  subject  to  a  military  dictator.  The  heart  of  the 
world-wide  empire  was  a  hotbed  of  corruption  where 
every  form  of  vice  took  root  and  flourished.  The 
Greek  thinkers  and  scholars  despised  their  masters, 
but  their  own  heroic  days  were  gone  and  they  were 
helpless  to  cast  off  the  yoke.  They  had  no  Pericles 
now,  no  Leonidas,  no  Miltiades.  Gone  were  the 
men  of  Thermopylae,  Marathon,  and  Salamis. 
These  were  lesser,  darker  days.  With  a  sure  instinct 
men  were  ceasing  to  feel  any  confidence  in  the  future 
of  this  pagan  civilisation.  It  had  its  great  ele- 
ments, but  the  signs  of  disruption  were  already 
apparent  and  no  one  could  foresee  what  would  take 
its  place.  The  mood  of  the  time  is  reflected  in  the 
pages  of  Tacitus  and  Juvenal.  Into  this  atmos- 
phere came  Christianity  with  its  doctrine  of  the  holy 
love  of  God  and  its  adoring  faith  in  Jesus.  But 
both  Judaism  and  Hellenism  had  already  the  ten- 
dency to  look  back  toward  a  better  and  happier 
time  and  to  think  of  the  present  as  a  fall  from  it. 
Paul  felt  this  like  everyone  else,  and  forthwith  took 


58  THE   NEW   THEOLOGY 

some  kind  of  a  fall  for  granted  when  unfolding  his 
system  of  thought.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he  took 
the  Genesis  story  literally  or  not,  and  he  certainly 
made  Adam  the  type  of  the  unideal  or  earthly  man 
who  had  become  estranged  from  God.  He  was  too 
great  a  man  to  be  pinned  down  to  mere  literalism 
in  a  question  of  this  kind,  so  in  his  use  of  the  terms 
supplied  by  the  rabbinical  version  of  the  legend  he 
glides  easily  into  the  statement  of  the  obvious  truth 
that  the  Adam,  or  lower  man,  or  earthly  principle  in 
every  human  being,  needs  to  be  transformed  by 
the  uprising  of  the  Christ  or  ideal  man,  within  the 
soul.  "  For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ 
shall  all  be  made  alive."  "The  first  man  is  of  the 
earth  earthy:  the  second  man  is  the  Lord  from 
heaven." 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  origins  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Fall.  Right  through  Christian  history  the 
tendency  has  run  to  look  upon  the  world  as  the  ruins 
of  a  divine  plan  marred  by  man's  perversity  and 
self-will.  It  is  time  we  got  rid  of  it,  for  it  has 
had  a  blighting,  deadening  influence  upon  hopeful 
endeavour  for  the  good  of  the  race.  It  is  not  in- 
tegral to  Christianity,  for  Jesus  never  said  a  word 
about  it  and  did  not  even  allude  to  it  indirectly. 
It  implies  a  view  of  the  nature  and  dealings  of  God 
with  men  which  is  unethical  and  untrue.  Surely, 
if  God  knew  beforehand  that  the  world  would  go 
wrong,  the  blame  for  catastrophe  was  not  all  man's. 
If  He  were  so  baffled  and  horror-stricken  by  the 


THE   NATURE   OF   EVIL  59 

results  as  the  dogmatic  theologian  makes  out,  He 
ought  to  have  been  more  careful  about  the  way 
He  did  His  work  at  the  beginning;  a  world  which 
went  wrong  so  early  and  so  easily  was  anything 
but  "  very  good,"  although  He  pronounced  it  to  be 
so  according  to  the  Genesis  writer.  Besides,  why 
should  a  trivial  act  of  transgression  have  sent  it  all 
wrong?  We  take  leave  of  our  common  sense  when 
we  talk 

Of  man's  first  disobedience  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree. 

To  be  sure  Milton  did  not  believe  it  himself  when 
he  wrote  that  line,  but  his  Puritan  associates  and 
Catholic  ancestors  did,  and  orthodoxy  professes  to 
do  so  still,  though  it  does  not  know  quite  how  to 
put  it  without  falling  into  absurdity.  Again,  why 
should  God  feel  Himself  so  much  aggrieved  by 
Adam's  peccadillo  ?  If  it  were  not  for  the  theological 
atmosphere  which  surrounds  the  question,  we  should 
see  at  once  that  it  was  ridiculous.  Why  should  the 
consequences  continue  through  countless  genera- 
tions? Remember  this  was  supposed  to  be  the  very 
start  of  humanity's  career.  What  a  dreary,  hope- 
less outlook  was  left  to  it !  The  notion  is  incredible, 
and  most  of  the  clear-headed  men  who  hold  it  would 
scout  it  without  discussion  if  they  heard  of  it  now  for 
the  first  time.  As  it  is,  however,  they  go  on  talking 
of  the  "  awful  holiness  "  of  God,  the  offence  against 
the  divine  majesty,  and  so  on.  But  what  is  this 
divine  holiness?  I  can  well  remember  that  as  a 


60  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

child  I  used  to  tremble  at  the  thought  of  it,  for  some- 
how, like  a  good  many  other  people,  I  had  been  taught 
to  think  of  the  divine  holiness  as  synonymous  with 
merciless  inflexibility.  But  holiness,  righteousness, 
justice,  mercy,  love,  are  but  different  expressions  of 
the  same  spiritual  reality.  One  might  go  on  mul- 
tiplying these  considerations  for  ever,  but  there  is  no 
need  to  do  so.  Sufficient  has  been  said  to  demon- 
strate the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  is  an 
absurdity  from  the  point  of  view  both  of  ethical 
consistency  and  common  sense. 

Science  and  the  Fall.  —  After  this  it  is  almost 
superfluous  to  point  out  that  modern  science  knows 
nothing  of  it  and  can  find  no  trace  of  such  a  cata- 
clysm in  human  history.  On  the  contrary,  it  asserts 
that  there  has  been  a  gradual  and  unmistakable  rise ; 
the  law  of  evolution  governs  human  affairs  just  as 
it  does  every  other  part  of  the  cosmic  process.  This 
statement  is  quite  consistent  with  the  admission  that 
there  have  been  periods  of  retrogression  as  well  as 
of  advance,  and  that  the  advance  itself  has  not  been 
steady  and  uniform  from  first  to  last;  there  have 
been  long  stretches  of  history  during  which  humanity 
has  seemed  to  mark  time  and  then  a  sudden  out- 
burst of  intellectual  activity  and  moral  achieve- 
ment. It  could  hardly  be  maintained,  for  instance, 
that  the  Athens  of  Socrates  was  not  superior  to  the 
France  of  Fulk  the  black  of  Anjou,  or  that  the  As- 
syria of  Asshur-bani-pal  was  not  quite  as  civilised 
as  the  Germany  of  the  ninth  century  A.D.  Alfred 


THE   NATURE   OF   EVIL  6l 

Russel  Wallace  has  shown  in  his  popular  book, 
"The  Wonderful  Century,"  that  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  witnessed  a  greater  advance 
in  man's  power  over  nature  than  the  fifteen  hundred 
years  preceding  it.  There  are  some  people  who 
maintain  that  while  the  material  advance  is  unques- 
tionable, the  intellectual  advance  is  on  the  whole 
more  doubtful,  and  that,  morally  speaking,  human 
nature  is  no  different  from  what  it  ever  was.  But 
I  do  not  think  any  serious  historian  would  say  this. 
Intellectually,  the  average  man  may  still  be  inferior 
to  Plato, — though  even  Plato  did  not  understand 
the  need  for  exact  thought  as  modern  philosophers 
do,  —  but  civilisation  as  a  whole  has  produced  a 
higher  level  of  intellectual  attainment  than  had  been 
reached  by  Plato's  world.  A  civilisation  in  which 
four-fifths  of  the  people  were  helots  kept  in  ignorance 
in  order  that  an  aristocratic  few  might  enjoy  the 
benefits  of  culture  was  not  equal  to  ours,  great  and 
glaring  as  the  defects  of  ours  may  be.  Again,  while 
it  is  only  too  sadly  true  that  modern  civilisation  con- 
tains plenty  of  callous  selfishness,  gross  injustice, 
and  abominable  cruelty,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that 
these  relics  of  our  brute  ancestry  are  universally 
deplored,  and  that  society  recognises  them  to  be 
inimical  to  its  well-being  and  seeks  to  get  rid  of  them. 
Thank  God,  as  Anthony  Trollope  said,  that  bad  as 
men  are  to-day  they  are  not  as  men  were  in  the  days 
of  the  Caesars. 

If  the  New  Theology  controversy  had  arisen  a 


62  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

few  hundred  years  ago,  theological  disputants  would 
not  have  wasted  time  in  writing  newspaper  articles; 
they  would  have  met  in  solemn  conclave  and  con- 
demned the  heretic  to  be  flayed  alive  or  hung  over 
a  slow  fire  or  treated  in  some  similarly  convincing 
manner.  Of  course  it  is  remotely  possible  that  some 
of  them  would  like  to  do  it  now,  but  public  opinion 
would  not  let  them;  things  have  changed,  and  the 
change  is  in  the  direction  of  a  higher  general  moral- 
ity. If  any  man  feels  pessimistic  about  the  present, 
let  him  study  the  past  and  he  will  feel  reassured. 
Those  who  maintain  that  society  is  not  morally 
better  but  only  more  sentimental,  beg  the  question. 
What  they  call  sentimentalism  is  greater  sensibility, 
greater  sympathy,  a  keener  sense  of  justice.  What 
is  the  moral  ideal  but  love?  Every  advance  in 
the  direction  of  universal  love  and  brotherhood  is 
a  moral  advance.  The  sternness  of  Stoicism  or 
Puritanism  was  an  imperfect  morality.  The  gran- 
deur and  impressiveness  of  it  were  due  to  the  fact 
that  Stoics  and  Puritans  for  the  most  part  took 
their  ideal  seriously;  they  aimed  at  something  high 
and  dedicated  their  lives  to  it.  This  dedication 
of  the  life  to  something  higher  than  self-interest 
is  of  the  very  essence  of  true  morality,  and  its  highest 
reach  is  perfect  love.  We  are  a  long  way  from 
that  yet,  although  the  ideal  was  manifested  two  thou- 
sand years  ago.  The  average  man  to-day  is  certainly 
not  nobler  than  the  apostle  Paul,  nor  does  he  see 
more  deeply  into  the  true  meaning  of  life  than  did 


THE   NATURE   OF  EVIL  63 

John  the  divine,  but  the  general  level  is  higher. 
Slowly,  very  slowly,  with  every  now  and  then  a 
depressing  set-back,  the  race  is  climbing  the  steep 
ascent  toward  the  ideal  of  universal  brotherhood. 

It  is  sometimes  maintained  by  thinkers  who  ac- 
count themselves  progressive  that  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion holds  good  of  mankind  so  far  as  our  physical 
constitution  is  concerned,  but  that  a  special  act  of 
creation  took  place  as  soon  as  the  physical  frame 
was  sufficiently  developed  to  become  the  receptacle 
of  a  higher  principle,  and  that  then,  and  not  till 
then,  "  man  became  a  living  soul."  But  it  is  im- 
possible to  square  the  circle  in  this  way,  and  to 
contrive  to  get  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  in  by  the  back 
door,  so  to  speak.  The  idea  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  hold  this  view  appears  to  be  that  the  tenant 
of  the  body  which  had  been  so  long  in  preparation 
was  a  simple  but  intelligent  and  morally  innocent 
personality  who  forthwith  proceeded  to  do  all  that 
Adam  is  credited  with  and  therefore  spoiled  what 
would  otherwise  have  been  a  harmonious  and  or- 
derly development;  what  we  now  see  is  not  evolu- 
tion as  God  meant  it,  but  evolution  perverted  by 
human  wrong-headedness.  But  this  theory  con- 
tains more  difficulties  than  the  older  one  it  aims 
to  replace.  It  makes  God  even  more  incompetent 
then  the  traditional  view  does.  For  untold  ages, 
apparently,  He  has  been  preparing  the  world  for 
the  advent  of  humanity,  only  to  find  that  the  mo- 
ment humanity  enters  it  the  whole  scheme  is  spoiled. 


64  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

But  we  need  not  seriously  consider  this  view;  the 
facts  are  overwhelmingly  against  it.  The  history, 
even  of  the  most  recent  civilisations,  is,  compara- 
tively speaking,  only  as  old  as  yesterday,  whereas 
the  presence  of  human  life  on  this  planet  is  traceable 
into  the  almost  illimitable  past.  But  the  farther 
we  go  back  in  our  investigation  of  human  origins 
the  less  possible  does  it  appear  that  the  primitive 
man  of  theological  tradition  has  ever  existed.  The 
Adam  of  the  dogmatic  theologian  is  like  the  economic 
man  of  the  older  school  of  writers  on  political  sci- 
ence, the  man  who  always  wants  to  buy  in  the 
cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the  dearest,  and  whose 
one  consistent  endeavour  is  to  seek  pleasure  and 
avoid  pain;  he  has  never  existed. 

Divine  immanence  and  its  Fall.  —  Besides,  we 
do  not  want  him  to  exist.  The  Fall  theory  is  not 
only  impossible  in  face  of  the  findings  of  modern 
science;  it  is  a  real  hindrance  to  religion.  So  far 
from  having  to  give  it  up  because  science  would 
have  nothing  to  say  to  it,  the  difficulty  would  be 
to  retain  it  and  yet  have  anything  like  a  rational 
view  of  the  relation  of  God  and  the  world.  It  has 
already  been  stated  that  the  starting-point  of  the 
New  Theology  is  a  recognition  of  the  truth  that  God 
is  expressing  Himself  through  His  world.  This 
truth  occupied  a  place  in  religious  thought  ages 
before  modern  science  was  thought  of;  science 
has  confirmed  it,  but  has  not  compelled  us  to  think 
it;  if  science  had  never  existed,  it  would  still  remain 


THE    NATURE   OF   EVIL  65 

the  only  reasonable  ground  for  an  adequate  ex- 
planation of  the  relation  of  man  to  the  universe. 
It  simplifies  all  our  questionings  and  coordinates 
all  our  activities.  There  is  not  a  single  one  in  the 
whole  vast  range  of  human  interests  which  it  does 
not  cover.  There  is  nothing  which  humanity  can 
do  or  seek  to  do  which  is  not  immediately  dependent 
upon  it.  The  grandest  task  and  the  lowliest  are 
both  implied  in  it.  It  declares  the  common  basis 
of  religion  and  morality.  Religion  is  the  response 
of  human  nature  to  the  whole  of  things  considered 
as  an  order;  morality  is  the  living  of  the  individual 
life  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  and  do  the  most  for 
humanity  as  a  whole ;  it  is  making  the  most  of  one's 
self  for  the  sake  of  the  whole.  Morality  is  not  self- 
immolation.  To  jump  off  London  Bridge  would 
be  self-immolation,  but  it  would  not  be  an  act  con- 
ducive to  the  welfare  of  the  community;  it  might 
indeed  be  a  very  selfish  and  cowardly  act.  True 
morality  involves  the  duty  of  self-formation  and 
the  exercise  of  judgment  and  self-discipline  in  order 
that  the  individual  life  may  become  as  great  a  gift 
as  possible  to  the  common  life.  It  will  therefore 
be  seen  at  once  that  there  is  a  vital  relation  between 
morality  and  religion;  the  one  implies  the  other 
even  though  the  fact  may  not  always  be  recognised, 
and  both  are  based  upon  the  immanence  of  God. 

The  truth  beneath  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall.  — 
But  never  yet  has  a  particular  doctrine  or  mode 
of  stating  truth  held  its  own  for  any  length  of  time 


66  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

in  human  history  unless  there  was  some  genuine 
truth  beneath  it,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  is  no 
exception.  It  does  contain  a  truth,  a  truth  which 
can  be  stated  in  a  few  words,  and  which  might  be 
inferred  from  what  has  already  been  said  about  the 
relationship  of  man  and  God.  The  coming  of  a 
finite  creation  into  being  is  itself  of  the  nature  of 
a  fall,  a  coming  down  from  perfection  to  imperfec- 
tion. We  have  seen  the  reason  for  that  coming 
down;  it  is  that  the  universal  life  may  realise  its 
own  nature  by  attenuating  or  limiting  its  perfec- 
tion. If  I  want  to  understand  the  composition  of 
the  ordinary  pure  white  ray,  I  take  a  prism  and  break 
it  up  into  its  constituents.  This  is  just  what  God 
has  been  doing  in  creation.  Our  present  conscious- 
ness of  ourselves  and  of  the  world  can  reasonably 
be  accounted  a  fall,  for  we  came  from  the  infinite  and 
unto  the  infinite  perfection  we  shall  in  the  end  re- 
turn. I  do  not  mean  that  our  present  consciousness 
of  ourselves  is  eternal;  I  only  assert  that  our  true 
being  is  eternally  one  with  the  being  of  God  and 
that  to  be  separated  from  a  full  knowledge  of  that 
truth  is  to  have  undergone  a  fall.  But  this  fall 
has  no  sinister  antecedents;  its  purpose  is  good, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  mourn  over  except  our  own 
slowness  at  getting  into  line  with  the  cosmic  pur- 
pose. Another  way  of  describing  it  would  be  to 
call  it  the  incarnation  of  God  in  nature  and  man,  a 
subject  about  which  I  must  say  more  in  another 
chapter.  This  view  of  the  meaning  and  significance 


THE   NATURE   OF   EVIL  67 

of  the  Fall  can  be  traced  in  all  great  religious  litera- 
ture. Perhaps  one  of  the  best  statements  of  it 
that  has  ever  been  made  is  the  one  set  forth  by  Paul 
of  Tarsus  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  his  letter  to  the 
Romans:  "  For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this 
present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with 
the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed  in  us.  For  the 
earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the 
manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  crea- 
ture was  made  subject  to  vanity,  not  willingly, 
but  by  the  reason  of  him  who  hath  subjected  the 
same  in  hope,  because  the  creature  itself  also  shall 
be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  For 
we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now."  Passages 
like  this  make  it  impossible  to  believe  that  Paul 
was  ever  really  tied  down  to  the  literal  rabbinical 
view  of  Adam's  transgression  and  its  consequences; 
and  these  words  are  a  clear  statement  of  the  truth 
that  the  imperfection  of  the  finite  Creation  is  not 
man's  fault  but  God's  will,  and  is  a  means  toward 
a  great  end. 


CHAPTER  V 

JESUS  THE  DIVINE  MAN 

The  centrality  of  Jesus.  —  All  that  has  been  said 
hitherto  is  but  a  preparation  for  the  discussion  of 
the  greatest  subject  that  at  present  occupies  the  field 
of  faith  and  morals,  that  of  the  personality  of  Jesus 
and  His  significance  for  mankind.  It  has  been 
repeatedly  pointed  out  both  by  friends  and  foes  of 
the  New  Theology  that  the  ultimate  question  for 
the  Christian  religion  is  that  of  the  place  occupied 
by  its  Founder.  Who  or  what  was  Jesus?  How 
much  can  we  really  know  about  Him?  What 
value  does  He  possess  for  the  religious  conscious- 
ness to-day?  All  other  questions  about  the  Chris- 
tian religion  are  of  minor  importance  compared 
with  these,  and  if  we  are  prepared  with  an  answer 
to  these  we  have  by  implication  answered  all  the 
rest.  Christianity  is  in  a  special  sense  immediately 
dependent  upon  its  Founder.  No  other  religion 
has  ever  regarded  its  founder  as  Christians  regard 
their  Master.  Christianity  draws  its  sustenance 
from  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  still  alive  and  impact- 
ing Himself  upon  the  world  through  His  followers. 
Other  great  religions  trace  their  origin  to  the  teach- 
ing and  example  of  some  exceptional  person;  Chris- 
es 


JESUS  THE   DIVINE   MAN  69 

tianity  does  the  same,  but  with  the  added  conviction 
that  Jesus  is  as  much  in  the  world  as  ever  and  that 
His  presence  is  realised  in  the  mystic  union  between 
Himself  and  those  who  know  and  love  Him.  If 
this  be  true,  it  is  a  fact  of  the  very  highest  impor- 
tance and  one  which  can  neither  be  passed  over  nor 
relegated  to  a  subordinate  position.  Christianity 
without  Jesus  is  the  world  without  the  sun.  If, 
as  I  readily  admit,  the  great  question  for  religion 
in  the  immediate  future  is  that  of  the  person  of 
Jesus,  the  sooner  we  address  ourselves  to  it  the 
better. 

Before  discussing  what  theology  has  to  say  of  Him 
let  us  note  in  general  terms  what  the  civilised  world  is 
saying,  theology  or  no  theology.  I  suppose  the  most 
out-and-out  materialist  would  admit  that  in  the  west- 
em  world  the  name  of  Jesus  exercises  an  influence  to 
which  no  other  is  even  remotely  comparable.  Perhaps 
he  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  admit  that  there  is  no 
name  anywhere  which  means  so  much  to  those  who 
hear  it.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  strongest  civilisa- 
tion on  earth  reverences  that  name,  but  that  there 
is  no  other  civilisation  which  can  produce  a  parallel 
to  it.  The  nearest  approach  to  it  is  that  of  Gautama, 
and  I  think  it  would  be  generally  admitted  that  the 
influence  even  of  this  mighty  and  beautiful  spirit 
has  never  possessed  the  immediacy,  intensity,  and 
personal  value  which  distinguish  that  of  Jesus. 
It  might  be  maintained  with  some  show  of  reason 
that  the  civilisation  of  Christendom,  although  it  is 


7O  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

now  being  copied  by  non-Christian  communities 
such  as  Japan,  is  not  necessarily  the  highest  because 
it  happens  to  be  the  strongest,  and  that  it  is  even 
regarded  with  contempt  by  the  best  representatives 
of  some  more  ancient  faiths.  Still  that  is  not  quite 
the  point.  The  point  is  that  the  name  of  Jesus, 
which  stands  for  a  moral  ideal  which  is  the  very 
negation  of  materialism,  commands  a  reverence,  and 
indeed  a  worship,  the  like  of  which  no  other  has  ever 
received  in  the  history  of  mankind.  It  is  no  use 
trying  to  place  Jesus  in  a  row  along  with  other 
religious  masters.  He  is  first  and  the  rest  nowhere ; 
we  have  no  category  for  Him.  I  am  not  trying  to 
prove  the  impossible,  namely,  that  Christianity  is 
the  only  true  religion  and  the  rest  are  all  false.  We 
shall  get  on  better  when  that  kind  of  nonsense  ceases 
to  be  spoken.  All  I  am  concerned  to  emphasise  is 
that  somehow  Jesus  seems  to  sum  up  and  focus 
the  religious  ideal  for  mankind.  His  influence  for 
good  is  greater  than  that  of  all  the  masters  of  men  put 
together,  and  still  goes  on  increasing.  It  is  a  notable 
fact  that  although  churches  and  creeds  are  losing 
their  hold  upon  the  modem  mind,  the  name  of  Jesus 
is  held  in  greater  regard  than  ever.  We  have  heard 
of  a  meeting  of  workmen  cheering  Jesus  and  hissing 
the  churches.  In  our  day  most  people  are  agreed 
than  in  Jesus  we  have  the  most  perfect  life  ever  ex- 
hibited to  humanity.  It  is  not  only  Christians  who 
take  this  view;  everyone,  or  nearly  everyone,  does 
so.  Some  years  ago  a  book  was  published  which 


JESUS   THE   DIVINE   MAN  71 

bore  on  the  title-page  the  question,  "  What  would 
Jesus  do  ?  "  The  book  was  not  very  well  written, 
and  I  do  not  think  the  writer  would  have  claimed  that 
it  contained  anything  original,  but  it  had  an  enormous 
sale  simply  because  of  its  attempt  to  answer  the 
question  on  the  covers.  The  most  unlikely  people 
bought  and  read  it,  people  who  never  went  to  church 
and  would  not  dream  of  doing  so.  From  indications 
such  as  these  one  is  justified  in  asserting  that  our 
western  civilisation  has  accepted  as  true  that,  no 
matter  who  Jesus  was,  His  character  represents  the 
highest  standard  for  human  attainment.  In  seeking 
moral  excellence  the  individual  and  the  race  are  thus 
moving  toward  an  ideal  already  manifested  in 
history.  The  most  effective  taunt  that  can  be  levelled 
at  inconsistent  Christians  is  that  they  are  unlike  their 
Master.  Criticisms  of  the  character  of  Jesus  are  now 
few  in  number,  and  usually  take  the  form  of  de- 
claring that  it  is  impracticable  or  impossible,  not  that 
it  is  undesirable  or  imperfect.  Some,  no  doubt, 
would  maintain  that  perhaps  the  real  Jesus  did  not 
answer  to  the  ideal  which  Christians  have  formed  of 
Him,  but  that  is  another  question.  Here  we  are 
now  face  to  face  with  the  unescapable  fact  that  the 
greatest  moral  and  religious  force  in  the  world  is 
embodied  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  and  this  by  general 
consent. 

The  Jesus  of  traditional  theology.  —  But  what  has 
traditional  Christian  theology  to  say  about  Jesus? 
Here  we  enter  a  region  in  which  the  ordinary  man 


72  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

of  the  world  does  not  live  and  is  never  likely  to  live, 
but  we  cannot  afford  to  ignore  it.  According  to  the 
received  theology,  Jesus  was  and  is  God  and  man 
in  a  sense  in  which  no  one  else  ever  has  been  or  ever 
will  be.  As  the  shorter  catechism  has  it,  following 
the  language  of  the  ancient  creeds,  "  There  are  three 
persons  in  one  God,  the  same  in  substance,  equal  in 
power  and  glory,"  and  Jesus  is  the  second  of  the 
three.  This  kind  of  statement  cannot  but  be  confus- 
ing to  the  ordinary  mind  of  to-day  if  only  because  the 
word  "  person  "  does  not  mean  to  us  quite  the  same 
thing  that  it  meant  to  the  framers  of  the  ancient 
creeds.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  some  of  my 
readers,  I  believe  what  the  creeds  say  about  the  person 
of  Jesus,  but  I  believe  it  in  a  way  that  puts  no  gulf 
between  Him  and  the  rest  of  the  human  race.  This, 
I  trust,  will  become  clearer  as  we  proceed;  it  seems 
to  me  to  be  implied  in  any  real  belief  concerning  the 
immanence  of  God.  I  think  even  the  A thanasian  creed 
is  a  magnificent  piece  of  work  if  only  the  churches 
would  consent  to  understand  it  in  terms  of  the  old- 
est theology  of  all !  But,  according  to  conventional 
theology,  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity,  who  was 
coequal  and  coeternal  with  God  the  Father,  laid 
aside  His  glory,  became  incarnate  for  our  salvation, 
was  born  of  a  virgin,  lived  a  brief  suffering  life, 
wrought  many  miracles,  died  a  shameful  death, 
rose  again  from  the  tomb  on  the  second  morning  after 
He  had  been  laid  in  it,  and  ascended  into  heaven  in 
full  view  of  His  wondering  disciples.  In  fulfilment 


JESUS   THE  DIVINE  MAN  73 

of  a  promise  made  by  Him  shortly  before  the  cruci- 
fixion, and  repeated  before  the  ascension,  He  and  the 
Father  conjointly  sent  the  third  person  in  the  Trinity 
to  endue  with  power  from  on  high  the  simple  men 
wl  ose  duty  it  now  became  to  proclaim  the  gospel  of 
salvation  to  the  world.  Jesus  is  now  on  the  throne  of 
His  glory,  but  sooner  or  later  He  will  come  again  to 
wind  up  the  present  dispensation  and  to  be  the  Judge 
of  the  quick  and  the  dead  at  a  grand  assize. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  all  this  is  true,  but  it  is 
commonly  expressed  in  such  a  way  that  the  truth  is 
lost  sight  of.  Literally  understood  it  is  incredible. 
The  only  way  to  get  at  the  truth  in  everyone  of  these 
venerable  articles  of  the  Christian  faith  will  be  to 
shed  the  husk,  and  that  we  must  do  without  hesi- 
tation or  compromise.  A  more  accurate  historic 
perspective  would  save  us  from  the  crudities  so  often 
preached  from  the  pulpits  in  the  name  of  Christian 
truth,  crudities  which  repel  so  many  intelligent  men 
from  the  benefits  of  public  worship.  There  never 
has  been  the  slightest  need  for  any  man  of  thoughtful 
mind  and  reverent  spirit  to  recoil  from  the  funda- 
mentals of  the  Christian  creed.  Rightly  understood 
they  are  the  fundamentals  of  human  nature  itself. 

Godhead  and  manhood. — The  first  in  order  of 
thought  is  that  of  the  Godhead  of  Jesus.  As  regards 
this  tenet  I  think  it  should  be  easily  possible  to  show 
that  the  most  convinced  adherent  of  the  traditional 
theology  does  not  believe  and  never  has  believed  what 
he  professes  to  hold.  The  terms  with  which  we 


74  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

have  to  deal  are  Deity,  divinity,  and  humanity.  A 
good  deal  of  confusion  exists  concerning  the  inter- 
relation of  these  three.  It  is  supposed  that  humanity 
and  divinity  are  mutually  exclusive,  and  that  divinity 
and  Deity  must  necessarily  mean'  exactly  the  same 
thing.  But  this  is  not  so.  It  follows  from  the  first 
principle  of  the  New  Theology  that  all  the  three  are 
fundamentally  and  essentially  one,  but  in  scope  and 
extent  they  are  different.  By  the  Deity  we  mean  — 
and  I  suppose  everyone  means  —  the  all-controlling 
consciousness  of  the  universe  as  well  as  the  infinite, 
unfathomable,  and  unknowable  abyss  of  being 
beyond.  By  divinity  we  mean  the  essence  of  the 
nature  of  the  immanent  God,  the  innermost  and  all- 
determining  quality  of  that  nature;  we  have  already 
seen  that  according  to  the  Christian  religion  the 
innermost  quality  of  the  divine  nature  is  perfect  love. 
Show  us  perfect  love  and  you  have  shown  us  the 
divinest  thing  the  universe  can  produce,  whether  it 
knows  itself  to  be  immediately  directed  and  controlled 
by  the  infinite  consciousness  of  Deity  or  whether 
it  does  not.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  although  Deity 
and  divinity  are  essentially  one,  the  latter  is  the  lesser 
term  and  is  dependent  for  its  validity  upon  the  former. 
Humanity  is  a  lesser  term  still.  It  stands  for  that 
expression  of  the  divine  nature  which  we  associ- 
ate with  our  limited  human  consciousness.  Strictly 
speaking,  the  human  and  divine  are  two  categories 
which  shade  into  and  imply  each  other;  humanity  is 
divinity  viewed  from  below,  divinity  is  humanity 


JESUS   THE   DIVINE   MAN  75 

viewed  from  above.  If  any  human  being  could 
succeed  in  living  a  life  of  perfect  love,  that  is  a  life 
whose  energies  were  directed  toward  impersonal 
ends,  and  which  was  lived  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  and 
do  the  utmost  for  the  whole,  he  would  show  himself 
divine,  for  he  would  have  revealed  the  innermost  of 
God. 

Now  let  us  apply  these  definitions  to  the  person- 
ality of  Jesus.  Granted  that  the  devotion  of  Chris- 
tians has  been  right  in  recognising  in  Him  the  one 
perfect  human  life,  that  is,  the  one  life  which  con- 
sistently and  from  first  to  last  was  lived  in  terms  of 
the  whole,  what  are  we  to  call  it  except  divine? 
In  a  sense,  of  course,  everything  that  exists  is  divine, 
because  the  whole  universe  is  an  expression  of  the 
being  of  God.  But  it  can  hardly  be  seriously  con- 
tended that  a  crocodile  is  as  much  an  expression  of 
God  as  General  Booth.  It  is  wise  and  right,  therefore, 
to  restrict  the  word  "  divine  "  to  the  kind  of  conscious- 
ness which  knows  itself  to  be,  and  rejoices  to  be,  the 
expression  of  a  love  which  is  a  consistent  self-giving 
to  the  universal  life.  "  God  is  love;  and  he  that 
dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in  God  and  God  in  him." 
General  Booth  is  divine  in  so  far  as  this  is  the  govern- 
ing principle  of  his  life.  Jesus  was  divine  simply 
and  solely  because  His  life  was  never  governed  by  any 
other  principle.  We  do  not  need  to  talk  of  two 
natures  in  Him,  or  to  think  of  a  mysterious  dividing 
line  on  one  side  of  which  He  was  human  and  on  the 
other  divine.  In  Him  humanity  was  divinity  and 


76  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

divinity,  humanity.  Does  anyone  think  that  this 
brings  Jesus  down  to  our  level?  Assuredly  it  does 
not;  we  are  far  too  prone  to  be  ruled  by  names.  To 
the  ordinary  Christian  this  explanation  of  the  divinity 
of  Jesus  may  seem  equivalent  to  the  denial  of  His 
uniqueness,  but  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  have 
already  devoted  some  little  space  to  emphasising 
the  obvious  fact  that  it  is  impossible  to  deny  the 
uniqueness  of  Jesus;  history  has  settled  that  question 
for  us.  If  all  the  theologians  and  materialists  put 
together  were  to  set  to  work  to-morrow  to  try  to  show 
that  Jesus  was  just  like  other  people,  they  would  not 
succeed,  for  the  civilised  world  has  already  made  up 
its  mind  on  that  point,  and  by  a  right  instinct 
recognises  Jesus  as  the  unique  standard  of  human 
excellence.  But  this  is  not  to  say  that  we  shall  never 
reach  that  standard  too ;  quite  the  contrary.  We  must 
reach  it  in  order  to  fulfil  our  destiny  and  to  crown 
and  complete  His  work.  To  stop  short  of  manifest- 
ing the  perfect  love  of  God  would  be  to  fail  of  the 
object  for  which  we  are  here  and  to  render  the 
advent  of  Jesus  useless.  Christendom  already  knows 
this  perfectly  well,  although  it  has  not  always  suc- 
ceeded in  expressing  it  with  perfect  clearness.  "Be- 
loved, now  are  we  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be,  but  we  know  that  when  He 
(or  rather  it)  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  Him." 
In  our  practical  religion  we  all,  even  the  most  re- 
actionary of  us,  regard  the  divinity  of  Jesus  just  in 
this  way.  It  has  no  other  value.  We  talk  of  imitat- 


JESUS  THE   DIVINE   MAN  77 

ing  Him,  conforming  to  His  likeness,  showing  His 
spirit,  and  so  on.  When  we  want  a  model  for 
courage,  fidelity,  gentleness,  humility,  unselfishness, 
we  promptly  turn  to  Jesus.  Even  in  our  relations 
with  God  we  try  to  follow  His  lead;  instinctively 
we  range  ourselves  with  Him  when  we  address  the 
universal  Father;  until  we  come  to  creed-making 
we  never  think  of  putting  Him  on  the  God  side 
of  things  and  ourselves  on  another.  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  orthodox  or  unorthodox,  Unitarian  or 
Trinitarian,  we  all  accept  in  practice  the  identity  of 
the  divine  and  human  in  Jesus  and  potentially 
in  ourselves.  But  you  make  Him  only  a  man ! 
No,  reader,  I  do  not.  I  make  Him  the  only  Man  — 
and  there  is  a  difference.  We  have  only  seen  perfect 
manhood  once  and  that  was  the  manhood  of  Jesus. 
The  rest  of  us  have  got  to  get  there. 

Jesus  and  Deity.  — This  brings  us  to  the  further 
question  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
as  I  have  already  indicated,  this  question,  too,  has 
long  been  settled  in  practice.  If  by  the  Deity  of 
Jesus  is  meant  that  He  possessed  the  all-controlling 
consciousness  of  the  universe,  then  assuredly  He  was 
not  the  Deity  for  He  did  not  possess  that  conscious- 
ness. He  prayed  to  His  Father,  sometimes  with 
agony  and  dread;  He  wondered,  suffered,  wept,  and 
grew  weary.  He  confessed  His  ignorance  of  some 
things  and  declared  Himself  to  have  no  concern  with 
others;  it  is  even  doubtful  how  far  He  was  prepared 
to  receive  the  homage  of  those  about  Him.  If  there 


78  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

be  one  thing  which  becomes  indisputable  from  the 
reading  of  the  gospel  narratives  it  is  that  Jesus 
possessed  a  true  human  consciousness,  limited  like 
our  own,  and,  like  our  own,  subject  to  the  ordinary 
ills  of  life.  Once  again  everybody  knows  this  after  a 
fashion.  The  most  determined  of  so-called  orthodox 
controversialists  would  hardly  try  to  maintain  that 
the  consciousness  of  Jesus  was  at  once  limited  and 
unlimited.  To  do  so  would  be  an  impossible  feat; 
if  Jesus  was  the  Deity,  He  certainly  was  not  the  whole 
of  the  Deity  during  His  residence  on  earth,  whatever 
He  may  be  now.  But,  it  may  be  objected,  in  His 
earthly  life  He  was  the  Deity  self-limited:  "He 
emptied  Himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,"  etc. 
Quite  so,  but  see  where  this  statement  leads.  The 
New  Theology  can  consistently  make  it,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  that  newer  theology  which  calls 
itself  orthodoxy  manages  to  do  so.  Does  the  self- 
limitation  of  Jesus  mean  that  the  Deity  was  lessened 
in  any  way  during  the  incarnation  ?  Why,  of  course 
not,  we  should  all  say;  the  Deity  continued  with 
infinite  fulness  unimpaired  above  and  beyond  the 
consciousness  of  Jesus.  Then  are  we  to  understand 
that  this  self-liniitation  of  Jesus  meant  that  the  eternal 
Son,  or  second  person  in  the  Trinity,  the  Word  by 
whom  the  worlds  were  made,  quitted  the  throne  of 
His  glory  and  lived  for  thirty-three  years  as  a  Jewish 
peasant?  I  think  the  dogmatic  theologian  would 
have  some  hesitation  in  giving  an  unqualified  affirm- 
ative to  this  question,  for  the  difficulties  implied 


JESUS   THE   DIVINE  MAN  79 

in  it  are  practically  insurmountable.  Was  the  full 
consciousness  of  the  eternal  Word  present  in  the  babe 
of  Bethlehem,  for  instance?  If  not,  where  was  it? 
Questions  like  these  cannot  be  answered  on  the 
lines  of  the  conventional  Christology.  The  plain 
and  simple  answer  to  all  of  them  is  to  admit  that  the 
Jesus  of  history  did  not  possess  the  consciousness  of 
Deity  during  His  life  on  earth.  His  consciousness 
was  as  purely  human  as  our  own.  Any  special  in- 
sight which  He  possessed  into  the  true  relations  of 
God  and  man  was  due  to  the  moral  perfection  of  His 
nature  and  not  to  His  metaphysical  status.  He  was 
God  manifest  in  the  flesh  because  His  life  was  a  con- 
sistent expression  of  divine  love  and  not  otherwise. 
But  He  was  not  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  in  any  way 
which  would  cut  Him  off  from  the  rest  of  human 
kind.  According  to  the  received  theology,  Jesus 
and  Jesus  only,  out  of  all  the  beings  who  have  ever 
trodden  the  road  which  humanity  has  to  travel, 
existed  before  all  ages.  We  live  our  threescore 
years  and  ten  and  then  pass  on  into  eternity;  He 
was  eternal  to  begin  with.  He  comes  to  earth  with 
a  hoary  antiquity  behind  Him,  a  timeless  life  to  look 
back  upon;  we  have  just  fluttered  into  existence. 
Surely  any  ordinary  intelligence  can  see  that  this 
kind  of  theologising  puts  an  impassable  gulf  at  once 
between  Jesus  and  every  other  person  who  has  ever 
been  born  of  an  earthly  mother.  Certainly  it  does, 
the  theologian  may  declare,  and  rightly  so,  for  that 
gulf  exists;  He  assumed  human  nature,  but  He  was 


80  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

eternally  divine  before  He  did  so,  and  we  are  not. 
I  do  not  need  to  refute  this  argument;  the  trend  of 
modem  thought  is  already  doing  so  most  effectually. 
It  is  a  gratuitous  assumption  without  a  shred  of 
evidence  to  support  it.  Besides,  unfortunately  for 
this  kind  of  statement,  the  scientific  investigation  of 
Christian  origins,  and  the  application  of  the  scien- 
tific method  to  the  history  of  Christian  doctrine  have 
shown  us  how  the  dogma  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus  grew 
up.  It  was  a  comparatively  late  development  in 
Christianity,  and  its  practical  implications  never 
have  been  accepted,  although  at  one  time  there  was 
a  danger  that  the  winsome  figure  of  Jesus  would  be 
removed  altogether  from  the  field  of  human  interest 
and  regard.  The  Jesus  of  Michael  Angelo's  "  Last 
Judgment "  is  a  terrifying  figure  without  a  trace  of  the 
lowly  Nazarene  about  Him,  and  yet  this  was  the 
Jesus  of  the  conventional  Christianity  of  the  time. 
It  was  through  this  dehumanising  of  Jesus  in  Chris- 
tian thought  and  experience  that  Mariolatry  arose 
in  the  Roman  church.  Could  anything  be  more 
grotesque  than  the  suggestion  that  the  mother  of 
Jesus  should  need  to  plead  with  her  son  to  be  merciful 
with  frail  humanity  ?  And  yet  this  is  what  it  came  to ; 
the  figure  of  Mary  was  introduced  in  order  to  preserve 
a  real  humanity  in  our  relations  with  the  Godhead. 
All  honour  to  those  who  have  called  us  back  to  the 
real  Jesus,  the  Jesus  of  Galilee  and  Jersualem,  the 
Jesus  with  the  prophet's  fire,  the  Jesus  who  was  so 
gentle  with  little  children  and  erring  women,  and 


JESUS   THE    DIVINE  MAN  8l 

yet  before  whom  canting  hypocrites  and  truculent 
ecclesiastics  slunk  away  abashed.  Upon  this  re- 
covered Jesus  the  world  has  now  fixed  its  adoring 
gaze,  and  it  will  not  readily  let  Him  go  again. 

Divine  manhood  and  Unitarianism.  —  But  then, 
someone  will  protest,  this  is  sheer  Unitarianism 
after  all;  you  do  not  believe  in  the  Jesus  who  is  the 
object  of  the  faith  of  Christendom,  but  in  one  who 
was  only  a  man  among  men;  you  do  not  think  of 
Him  as  very  God  of  very  God.  Not  so  fast;  we  are 
busy  with  names  again.  Most  of  us  have  a  tendency 
to  think  that  if  we  can  get  a  doctrine  labelled  and 
pigeonholed,  we  know  all  about  it,  but  we  are  gen- 
erally mistaken.  This  is  not  Unitarianism,  and  I  do 
believe  that  Jesus  was  very  God,  as  I  have  already 
shown.  We  have  to  get  rid  of  the  dualism  which  will 
insist  on  putting  humanity  and  Deity  into  two  sepa- 
rate categories.  I  say  it  is  not  Unitarianism,  for 
historic  Unitarianism  has  been  just  as  prone  to  this 
dualism  as  the  extremest  Trinitarianism  has  ever 
been.  Like  Trinitarianism  it  has  often  tended  to 
regard  humanity  as  on  one  side  of  a  gulf  and  Deity 
as  on  the  other;  it  has  emphasised  too  much  the 
transcendence  of  God.  The  sentence  quoted  above 
from  an  orthodox  Trinitarian  divine  about  "  God's 
eternal  eminence  and  His  descent  on  a  created 
world  "  might  just  as  well  have  been  employed  by  an 
out-and-out  Unitarian.  Modem  Unitarianism  is  in 
part  the  descendant  of  eighteenth- century  Deism 
which  insisted  upon  the  transcendence  of  God  almost 


82  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

to  the  exclusion  of  His  immanence;  it  thought  of 
God  as  away  somewhere  above  the  universe,  watch- 
ing it  but  leaving  the  machine  pretty  much  to  itself. 
Unitarianism  in  the  course  of  its  history  from  the  first 
century  downward  has  passed  through  a  good  many 
phases.  Present-day  Unitarianism  is  preaching  with 
fervour  and  clearness  the  foundation  truth  of  the 
New  Theology,  the  fundamental  unity  of  God  and 
man.  But  it  does  not  belong  to  it  exclusively,  and 
I  decline  to  be  labelled  Unitarian  because  I  preach  it 
too.  The  New  Theology  is  not  a  victory  for  Uni- 
tarianism. If  ever  the  English-speaking  commu- 
nities of  the  world  should  come  to  be  united  under 
a  single  flag,  would  it  be  just  and  wise  to  call  them 
all  Americans?  No  doubt  some  of  our  American 
cousins  would  like  to  think  so,  but  there  is  enough 
of  virility  and  solid  worth  on  the  British  side  of 
the  question  to  make  that  description  impossible. 
The  title  would  be  a  misnomer,  and  in  fact  an  ab- 
surdity. The  case  in  regard  to  the  connection  of  the 
New  Theology  with  Unitarianism  is  not  dissimilar. 
It  is  only  sectarian  Unitarians  who  would  try  to 
claim  it  for  their  own  denomination;  the  best  and 
most  outstanding  exponents  of  Unitarianism  would 
not  wish  to  do  anything  of  the  kind,  for  they  know 
well  enough  that  historically  speaking  they  have  not 
consistently  stood  for  it  any  more  than  any  other 
denomination.  The  New  Theology  does  not  belong 
to  any  one  church  but  to  all.  For  my  own  part  I 
would  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  try  to  turn  a 


JESUS  THE   DIVINE   MAN  83 

Roman  Catholic  into  a  Protestant.  Let  every  man 
stay  in  the  church  whose  spiritual  atmosphere  and 
modes  of  worship  best  accord  with  his  temperament, 
but  let  him  recognise  the  deeper  unity  that  lies  below 
the  formal  creeds.  The  old  issue  between  Uni- 
tarianism  and  Trinitarianism  vanishes  in  the  New 
Theology;  the  bottom  is  knocked  out  of  the  con- 
troversy. Unitarianism  used  to  declare  that  Jesus 
was  man  not  God;  Trinitarianism  maintained  that 
He  was  God  and  man ;  the  oldest  Christian  thought, 
as  well  as  the  youngest,  regards  Him  as  God  in 
man  —  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  But  here  emerges 
a  great  point  of  difference  between  the  New  The- 
ology on  the  one  hand  and  traditional  orthodoxy  on 
the  other.  The  latter  would  restrict  the  description 
"God  manifest  in  the  flesh"  to  Jesus  alone;  the 
New  Theology  would  extend  it  in  a  lesser  degree  to  all 
humanity,  and  would  maintain  that  in  the  end  it 
will  be  as  true  of  every  individual  soul  as  ever  it  was 
of  Jesus.  Indeed,  it  is  this  belief  that  gives  value 
and  significance  to  the  earthly  mission  of  Jesus; 
He  came  to  show  us  what  we  potentially  are.  This 
is  a  great  and  important  issue,  which  requires  to  be 
treated  in  a  separate  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   ETERNAL  CHRIST 

IN  the  course  of  Christian  history  a  good  deal  of 
time  has  been  occupied  in  the  discussion  of  the  meta- 
physical question  of  the  complex  unity  of  the  divine 
nature;  and  the  result  has  been  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  a  conception  which,  it  has  been  claimed, 
at  once  satisfies  and  transcends  the  operations  of 
the  human  intellect.  Most  non-theological  modem 
minds  are,  however,  somewhat  suspicious  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  it  seems  rather  too  speculative 
and  too  remote  from  ordinary  ways  of  thinking  to 
possess  much  real  value.  But  this  is  quite  a  mistake. 
We  cannot  dispense  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
for  it,  or  something  like  it,  is  implied  in  the  very  struc- 
ture of  the  mind.  It  belongs  to  philosophy  even  more 
than  to  religion,  and  to  the  sphere  of  ethics  not  less. 
I  daresay  even  the  man  in  the  street  knows,  quite 
as  certainly  as  the  man  in  the  schools,  that  a  meta- 
physical proposition  underlies  the  doing  of  every 
moral  act,  even  though  it  may  never  be  expressed. 
All  thinking  starts  with  an  assumption  of  some  kind, 
and  without  an  assumption  thought  is  impossible. 
This  is  just  as  true  of  the  strictest  scientific  processes 
as  it  is  of  deductive  reasoning,  and  indeed  it  is 

84 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST  8$ 

interesting  to  watch  the  way  in  which  within  recent 
years  idealistic  philosophy  and  empirical  science 
have  joined  hands.  Does  physical  science,  then, 
imply  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity?  Yes,  unques- 
tionably it  does,  after  a  fashion,  for  it  starts  with 
an  assumption  which  takes  it  for  granted.  Perhaps 
this  would  be  news  to  Professor  Ray  Lankester, 
and  such  as  he,  but  I  think  I  could  convince  them 
that  I  am  right  if  I  had  them  face  to  face.  To  use 
the  mind  at  all  we  have  to  assume  this  doctrine  even 
though  we  may  not  actually  formulate  it.  Chris- 
tianity did  not  invent  it;  it  clarified  and  defined  it, 
but  in  principle  it  is  as  old  as  the  exercise  of  human 
reason. 

The  basal  assumption  of  thought.  —  After  mak- 
ing a  comprehensive  assertion  of  this  kind  I  suppose 
I  am  bound  to  justify  it,  and  I  do  not  shrink  from 
the  task.  I  say  that  all  thinking  starts  with  an 
assumption  of  some  kind,  and  exact  thought  requires 
that  that  assumption  shall  be  the  simplest  possible, 
the  irreducible  minimum  beneath  which  we  cannot 
get.  Now  when  we  start  thinking  about  existence 
as  a  whole  and  ourselves  in  particular,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  assume  the  infinite,  the  finite,  and  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  former  within  the  latter.  In  other  words 
we  have  to  postulate  God,  the  universe,  and  God's 
operation  within  the  universe.  Look  at  these  three 
conceptions  for  a  moment  and  it  will  be  seen  that 
every  one  of  them  implies  the  rest ;  they  are  a  Trinity 
in  unity.  The  primordial  being  must  be  infinite, 


86  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

for  there  cannot  be  a  finite  without  something  still 
beyond  it.  We  know,  too,  that  to  our  experience  the 
universe  is  finite;  we  can  measure,  weigh,  and  ana- 
lyse it  —  an  impossible  thing  to  do  with  an  infinite 
substance.  And  yet  if  we  think  of  infinite  and  finite 
as  two  entirely  distinct  and  unrelated  modes  of 
existence,  we  find  ourselves  in  an  impossible  position, 
for  the  infinite  must  be  that  outside  of  which  nothing 
exists  or  can  exist;  so  of  course  we  are  compelled 
to  think  of  the  infinite  as  ever  active  within  the 
finite,  the  source  of  change  and  motion,  the  exhaust- 
less  power  which  makes  possible  the  very  idea  of 
development  from  simplicity  to  complexity.  If  the 
universe  were  complete  in  itself,  change  would  not 
occur,  and  a  cosmic  process,  evolutionary  or  other- 
wise, would  be  inconceivable.  Here,  then,  we  have 
the  basal  factors  of  any  true  theology,  philosophy, 
or  science.  Readers  of  HaeckePs  "  Riddle  of  the 
Universe  "  will  note  that  that  eminent  materialist, 
who  professes  to  do  away  with  the  very  idea  of  God, 
takes  these  factors  for  granted;  and  yet  I  suppose 
he  would  object  to  being  told  that  he  believes  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  But  he  does,  for  he  begins 
by  assuming  infinite  space  filled  to  the  farthest  with 
matter  ponderable  and  imponderable,  and  forthwith 
proceeds  to  weigh,  measure,  and  divide  the  latter 
as  though  it  were  finite !  Here  are  two  terms  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  at  once.  We  get  the  third 
as  soon  as  Professor  Haeckel  sets  to  work  to  explain 
the  cosmic  process,  for  as  he  does  so  he  is  all  the 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST  87 

while  taking  for  granted  that  the  infinite  is  pressing 
in  and  up  through  the  finite,  evolving  beauty  and 
order,  light  and  life. 

The  moral  basis  of  the  doctrine.  —  But  it  may  be 
contended  that  these  bare  bones  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  are  not  the  doctrine  as  it  enters  into 
spiritual  experience.  I  admit  the  fact  while  assert- 
ing strongly  that  but  for  this  framework  of  intel- 
lectual necessity  the  doctrine  would  be  unknown 
to  faith  and  morals.  It  is  sometimes  stated  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  formulated  in  order  to 
account  for  Jesus,  but  that  is  only  incidentally  true. 
Its  framers  took  the  materials  for  it  over  from  Greek 
thought,  and  even  Greek  thought  probably  in- 
herited it  from  an  older  civilisation  still,  if  indeed 
there  were  any  necessity  to  inherit  it.  I  contend 
that  if  we  had  never  heard  of  the  doctrine  in  con- 
nection with  Jesus,  we  should  have  to  invent  it  now 
hi  order  to  account  for  ourselves  and  the  wondrous 
universe  in  which  we  live. 

Unquestionably,  however,  it  is  from  the  point  of 
view  of  religion  and  morals  that  the  doctrine  has 
most  significance,  and  therefore  has  become  indis- 
solubly  associated  with  the  personality  of  Jesus ;  and 
it  is  easy  to  see  how  this  has  come  about.  Thinkers 
have  always  been  compelled  to  construe  the  universe 
in  terms  of  the  highest  known  to  man,  namely,  his 
own  moral  nature.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that 
while  they  thought  of  the  universe  as  an  expression 
of  God,  they  should  think  of  it  as  the  expression  of 


88  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

that  side  of  His  being  which  can  only  be  described 
as  the  ideal  or  archetypal  manhood.  The  infinite 
being  of  God  is  utterly  incomprehensible  to  a  finite 
mind,  and  in  regard  to  it  the  most  devout  saint  is  as 
much  an  agnostic  as  the  most  convinced  materialist. 
But  we  are  justified  in  holding  that  whatever  else 
He  may  be  God  is  essentially  man,  that  is,  He  is  the 
fount  of  humanity.  There  must  be  one  side,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  infinitely  complex  being  of  God  in 
which  humanity  is  eternally  contained  and  which 
finds  expression  in  the  finite  universe.  Humanity 
is  not  a  vague  term;  we  have  already  seen  something 
of  what  it  is.  We  ought  not  to  interpret  it  in  terms 
of  the  primeval  savage,  or  even  of  average  human 
nature  to-day,  but  in  terms  of  what  we  have  come 
to  feel  is  its  highest  expression,  and  that  is  Jesus. 
If  we  think  therefore  of  the  archetypal  eternal  divine 
Man,  the  source  and  sustenance  of  the  universe,  and 
yet  transcending  the  universe,  we  cannot  do  better 
than  think  of  Him  in  terms  of  Jesus;  Jesus  is  the 
fullest  expression  of  that  eternal  divine  Man  on  the 
field  of  human  history.  Here,  then,  we  have  the 
first  and  second  factors  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
morally  and  spiritually  construed. 

The  divine  Man. — The  idea  of  a  divine  Man, 
the  emanation  of  the  infinite,  the  soul  of  the  universe, 
the  source  and  goal  of  all  humanity,  is  ages  older  than 
Christian  theology.  It  can  be  traced  in  Babylonian 
religious  literature,  for  instance,  at  a  period  older 
even  than  the  Old  Testament.  It  played  a  not  unim- 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST  89 

portant  part  in  Greek  thought,  and  Philo  of  Alexan- 
dria, a  contemporary  of  Jesus,  works  it  out  in  some 
detail  in  his  religio-philosophic  system,  which  aimed 
to  combine  the  wide  outlook  of  Greek  culture  with 
the  high  seriousness  of  Hebrew  religion.  It  is  a  true, 
indeed  an  inevitable,  conception,  if  we  hold  anything 
like  a  consistent  view  of  the  immanence  of  God  in 
His  universe.  With  what  God  have  we  to  do  except 
the  God  who  is  eternally  man?  This  aspect  of  the 
nature  of  God  has  been  variously  described  in  the 
course  of  its  history.  It  has  been  called  the  Word, 
the  Son,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  second  person 
in  the  Trinity.  For  various  reasons  I  prefer  to  call 
it  —  or  rather  Him  —  the  eternal  Christ.  I  do  this 
because,  for  one  thing,  the  word  "  Christ "  is  a 
living  word  with  a  clearly  marked  ethical  content 
and  a  great  religious  value.  Originally,  of  course, 
it  was  but  the  Greek  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  Mes- 
siah, and  meant  the  "  anointed  one,"  the  person 
chosen  for  a  special  divine  work.  But  in  the  New 
Testament,  especially  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  as 
well  as  all  Christian  history  through,  it  is  associated 
on  the  one  hand  with  the  personality  of  Jesus,  and, 
on  the  other,  with  the  fontal  or  ideal  Man  who  con- 
tains and  is  expressed  in  all  human  kind.  Accord- 
ing to  the  New  Testament  writers,  Jesus  was  and  is 
the  Christ,  but  in  His  earthly  life  His  consciousness 
of  the  fact  was  limited.  But,  as  we  have  come  forth 
from  this  fontal  manhood,  we  too  must  be  to  some 
extent  expressions  of  this  eternal  Christ;  and  it  is 


QO  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

in  virtue  of  that  fact  that  we  stand  related  to  Jesus, 
and  that  the  personality  of  Jesus  has  anything  to 
do  with  us.  Here  is  where  the  value  of  our  belief 
in  the  interaction  of  the  higher  and  the  lower  self 
comes  in.  Fundamentally  our  being  is  already  one 
with  that  of  the  eternal  Christ,  and  faith  in  Jesus 
is  faith  in  Him.  Jesus  is  not  one  being  and  the 
Christ  another;  the  two  are  one,  and  Jesus  seems  to 
have  known  it  during  His  earthly  ministry.  He 
lived  His  life  in  such  a  way  as  to  reveal  the  very  essence 
of  the  Christ  nature.  He  is  therefore  central  for  us, 
and  we  are  complete  in  Him.  Here  is  the  goal  of 
all  moral  effort  —  Christ.  Here,  too,  is  the  highest 
reach  of  the  religous  ideal  —  Christ.  "  For  the  life 
was  manifested,  and  we  have  seen  it,  and  bear  wit- 
ness, and  shew  unto  you  that  eternal  life,  which  was 
with  the  Father,  and  was  manifested  unto  us." 

The  Christ  of  St.  Paul.  —  I  am  persuaded  that  we 
have  here  the  key  to  the  Christology  of  that  great 
thinker  and  preacher,  the  apostle  Paul.  It  is  this 
ideal  or  eternal  Christ  who  is  the  object  of  his  faith 
and  devotion.  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to  warn  his 
readers  not  to  dwell  too  much  upon  the  limited  earthly 
Jesus,  but  upon  His  true  being  in  the  eternal  reality : 
"  Wherefore  henceforth  know  we  no  man  after  the 
flesh;  yea,  though  we  have  known  Christ  after  the 
flesh,  yet  now  henceforth  know  we  Him  no  more." 
He  does  not  say,  "To  me  to  live  is  Jesus,"  but, 
"To  me  to  live  is  Christ."  If  ever  there  was  a 
Christian  who  really  loved  Jesus  with  passionate 


THE  ETERNAL  CHRIST  9! 

and  whole-hearted  devotion,  it  was  the  apostle 
Paul,  but  he  says  almost  nothing  about  the  earthly 
ministry  of  his  Lord.  He  seems  to  have  had  a  vivid 
impression  as  to  what  the  character  of  Jesus  was 
really  like,  and  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  worship 
of  this  with  all  his  heart ;  but  he  does  not  draw  for 
us  any  of  the  beautiful  gospel  pictures  of  the  Jesus 
in  the  peasant's  dress  who  taught  on  the  hillsides 
of  Galilee,  went  about  doing  good,  was  a  welcome 
guest  in  the  home  at  Bethany,  lived  a  true  human 
life,  and  died  a  shameful  death.  Paul  always  thought 
of  Him,  and  truly,  as  the  Lord  who  came  down  from 
heaven,  but  he  does  not  draw  a  sharp  line  of  distinc- 
tion between  Him  and  the  rest  of  humanity.  He 
calls  Jesus  "  the  first-born  among  many  brethren." 
He  speaks  of  the  summing  up  of  all  things  in  Christ, 
and  of  the  final  consummation  when  God  shall  be 
all  in  all.  Here  is  the  New  Theology  with  a  ven- 
geance. Paul  requires  to  be  rescued  from  the  in- 
adequate and  distorting  interpretations  his  thought 
has  received  in  the  course  of  its  history.  He  brought 
this  conception  of  the  eternal  Christ  into  Christianity 
from  pre-Christian  thought,  saw  it  ideally  revealed 
in  Jesus,  and  then  bade  mankind  respond  to  it  and 
realise  it  to  be  the  true  explanation  of  our  own  being. 
Sometimes  he  appears  to  deviate  from  this  view,  and 
to  say  things  inconsistent  with  it,  but  that  we  need 
not  mind;  he  saw  it,  and  that  is  enough.  It  forms 
the  foundation  of  his  gospel. 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE  INCARNATION  OF   THE  SON  OF   GOD 

Jesus  all    that  Christian  devotion  has   believed 

Hun  to  be.  —  So  far  we  have  seen  that  the  personality 
of  Jesus  is  central  for  Christian,  faith.  We  deny 
nothing  about  Him  that  Christian  devotion  has  ever 
affirmed,  but  we  affirm  the  same  things  of  humanity 
as  a  whole  in  a  differing  degree.  The  practical 
dualism  which  regards  Jesus  as  coming  into  human- 
ity from  something  that  beforehand  was  not  human- 
ity we  declare  to  be  misleading.  Our  view  of  the 
subject  does  not  belittle  Jesus  but  it  exalts  human 
nature.  Let  this  be  clearly  understood  and  most  of 
the  objections  to  it  will  vanish.  Briefly  summed  up, 
the  position  is  as  follows :  Jesus  was  God,  but  so  are 
we.  He  was  God  because  His  life  was  the  expression 
of  divine  love;  we  too  are  one  with  God  in  so  far 
as  our  lives  express  the  same  thing.  Jesus  was  not 
God  in  the  sense  that  He  possessed  an  infinite  con- 
sciousness; no  more  are  we.  Jesus  expressed  fully 
and  completely,  in  so  far  as  a  finite  consciousness 
ever  could,  that  aspect  of  the  nature  of  God  which 
we  have  called  the  eternal  Son,  or  Christ,  or  ideal 
Man  who  is  the  Soul  of  the  universe,  and  "the  light 
that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world;  " 

92 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  THE   SON  OF   GOD          93 

we  are  expressions  of  the  same  primordial  being. 
Fundamentally  we  are  all  one  in  this  eternal  Christ. 
This  is  the  most  difficult  statement  of  all  to  make 
clear,  for  the  average  westerner  cannot  grasp  it;  it  is 
different  from  his  ordinary  way  of  looking  at  things. 
The  best  way  of  demonstrating  it,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  is  to  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that  Christian 
orthodoxy  has  all  along  been  affirming  the  mystic 
union  between  Christ  and  the  soul,  and  that  the 
limited  earthly  consciousness  of  Jesus  did  not  prevent 
Him  from  being  really  and  truly  God.  Why  should 
we  not  speak  in  a  similar  way  about  any  other  human 
consciousness?  If  we  could  only  get  men  to  do  so 
habitually  and  sincerely,  it  would  be  the  greatest 
gain  to  religion  that  could  possibly  be  imagined. 
In  the  third  chapter  I  have  pointed  out  that  psy- 
chological science  is  doing  much  to  help  us  toward 
this  realisation.  We  are  beginning  to  see,  however 
hard  it  may  be  to  understand  it,  that  our  limited 
individual  consciousness  is  no  barrier  to  the  true 
identification  of  the  lesser  with  the  larger  self.  What 
Christian  doctrine,  therefore,  has  been  affirming  of 
Jesus  for  hundreds  of  years  past  is  receiving  impres- 
sive confirmation  from  modern  science  and  is  being 
seen  to  be  true  of  every  human  being  —  that  is,  the 
lesser  and  the  larger  are  one,  however  little  the  earthly 
consciousness  may  be  able  to  grasp  the  fact.  To  me 
this  is  a  most  helpful  and  inspiring  truth,  one  of  the 
most  important  that  has  ever  found  a  place  hi  Chris- 
tian thought;  it  elucidates  much  that  would  other- 


94  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

wise  be  obscure.  It  enables  us  to  see  how  the  human 
and  divine  were  blended  in  Jesus  without  making 
Him  essentially  different  from  the  rest  of  the  human 
race;  it  enables  us  to  realise  our  own  true  origin 
and  to  believe  in  the  salvability  of  every  soul  that 
has  ever  come  to  moral  consciousness.  If  this  truth 
will  not  lift  a  man  toward  the  higher  life,  I  do  not 
know  one  that  will.  It  is  the  truth  implied  in  all 
redemptive  effort  that  has  ever  been  made,  and  in 
every  message  that  has  ever  gripped  conscience  and 
heart;  it  is,  as  the  Nicene  creed  has  it,  "  the  taking 
of  the  manhood  into  God." 

The  preeminence  of  Jesus.  —  Lest  anyone  should 
think  that  this  position  involves  in  the  slightest  degree 
the  diminution  of  the  religious  value  and  the  moral 
preeminence  of  Jesus,  let  me  say  that  it  does  the  very 
opposite.  Nothing  can  be  higher  than  the  highest, 
and  the  life  of  Jesus  was  the  undimmed  revelation 
of  the  highest.  Faith  to  be  effective  must  centre  on 
a  living  person,  and  the  highest  objective  it  has  ever 
found  is  Jesus.  He  is  no  abstraction  but  a  spiritual 
reality,  an  ever-present  friend  and  guide,  our  brother 
and  our  Lord.  No  one  will  ever  compete  with  Jesus 
for  this  position  in  human  hearts.  When  I  speak 
of  the  eternal  Christ,  I  do  not  mean  someone  different 
from  Jesus,  although  I  certainly  do  mean  the  basal 
principle  of  all  human  goodness;  Jesus  was  and  is 
that  Christ,  and  we  can  only  understand  what  the 
Christ  is  because  we  have  seen  Him.  Whole- 
hearted faith  in  Him  has  proved  itself  to  be  the  most 


THE  INCARNATION   OF   THE   SON   OF    GOD          95 

effective  means  to  the  manifestation  of  our  own 
Christhood. 

Jesus  and  the  incarnation.  —  This  thought  at  once 
opens  up  another  great  question  to  which  we  have 
already  alluded,  that  of  the  incarnation  of  this  eter- 
nal Christ  or  Son  of  God  in  the  finite  universe. 
According  to  the  received  theology  the  incarnation 
of  God  in  human  lif e  was  limited  to  the  life  of  Jesus 
only,  and  through  Him  to  mankind.  I  purposely 
say  popular  theology  because  the  best  Christian 
thought  has  always  known  better.  Popular  theol- 
ogy has  it  that  Jesus,  the  only-begotten  eternal  Son 
of  God,  took  human  flesh  and  a  human  nature,  was 
conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  womb  of  a  virgin, 
and  was  born  into  the  world  in  a  wholly  miraculous 
way  —  a  way  which  stamps  Him  as  different  from  all 
that  were  ever  born  of  woman  before  or  since.  It 
seems  strange  that  belief  in  the  virgin  birth  of  Jesus 
should  ever  have  been  held  to  be  a  cardinal  article 
of  the  Christian  faith,  but  it  is  so  even  to-day.  There 
is  not  much  need  to  combat  it,  for  most  reputable 
theologians  have  now  given  it  up,  but  it  is  still  a 
stumbling-block  to  many  minds.  Perhaps,  there- 
fore, a  brief  examination  of  the  subject  may  not  be 
altogether  out  of  place. 

The  virgin  birth  not  demonstrable  from  Scrip- 
ture. — The  virgin  birth  of  Jesus  was  apparently 
unknown  to  the  primitive  church,  for  the  earliest 
New  Testament  writings  make  no  mention  of  it. 
Paul's  letters  do  not  allude  to  it,  neither  does  the 


96  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

gospel  of  St.  Mark.  "  In  the  fulness  of  time,"  says 
the  great  apostle,  "  God  sent  forth  His  Son  bom  of  a 
woman."  He  was  "  of  the  seed  of  David  according 
to  the  flesh,"  but  nowhere  does  Paul  give  us  so  much 
as  a  hint  of  anything  supernatural  attending  the  mode 
of  His  entry  into  the  world.  Mark  does  not  even  tell 
us  anything  about  the  childhood  of  the  Master;  his 
account  begins  with  the  baptism  of  Jesus  in  Jordan. 
The  fourth  gospel,  although  written  much  later, 
ignores  the  belief  in  the  virgin  birth,  and  even  seems 
to  do  so  of  set  purpose  as  belittling  and  materialising 
the  truth.  The  supposed  Old  Testament  prophecies 
of  the  event  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it. 
The  famous  passage,  "  Behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive 
and  bear  a  son,  and  shall  call  His  name  Immanuel," 
is  a  reference  to  contemporary  events,  and  the  word 
translated  "  virgin  "  simply  means  a  young  woman. 
It  is  a  prophecy  of  the  birth  of  a  prince  whose  work 
it  should  be  to  put  right  for  Judah  what  the  reigning 
king  Ahaz  had  been  putting  wrong.  The  story  in  the 
seventh  of  Isaiah  is  as  follows :  Ahaz,  a  rather  weak 
ruler,  was  greatly  concerned  by  the  news  that  Rezin 
king  of  Syria  and  Pekah,  king  of  northern  Israel, 
had  formed  an  alliance  against  him  and  were  march- 
ing on  Jerusalem.  In  his  extremity  this  monarch 
of  a  petty  state  turned  toward  the  mighty  ruler  of 
Assyria,  the  greatest  military  power  in  the  world, 
and  asked  his  help  against  the  combination.  Isaiah, 
statesman  as  well  as  prophet,  saw  that  this  was  a 
wrong  move.  Assyria  was  aspiring  to  universal 


THE  INCARNATION   OF  THE   SON  OF    GOD          97 

dominion,  and  to  form  an  alliance  with  the  military 
master  of  that  mighty  state  would  be  to  supply  him 
with  an  excuse  for  further  interference.  The  policy 
of  Ahaz  was  therefore  as  suicidal  as  that  of  John 
Balliol  when  he  called  in  Edward  the  First  to  ad- 
judicate on  his  claim  to  the  crown  of  Scotland,  or 
the  policy  of  Spain  when  she  called  hi  Napoleon. 
Sargon,  king  of  Assyria,  was  overturning  thrones  in 
all  directions,  profiting  by  the  divisions  and  jealousies 
of  his  foes.  The  great  empires  of  Egypt  and  Baby- 
lonia went  down  before  him  as  well  as  the  smaller 
states.  The  condition  of  things  in  this  ancient 
world  was  just  like  that  of  Europe  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  when  the  star  of  Napoleon 
was  in  the  ascendant.  For  Ahaz  to  turn  for  help  to 
Sargon  was  to  court  disaster  in  the  end.  Isaiah 
saw  this  and  went  out  to  meet  Ahaz  one  day  "  at 
the  end  of  the  conduit  of  the  upper  pool  in  the  high- 
way of  the  fuller's  field  "  —  a  vivid  descriptive 
touch.  The  king  was  apparently  preparing  to  stand 
a  siege  in  his  capital  and  was  making  sure  of  the 
water  supply.  Isaiah's  remonstrance  was  in  sub- 
stance: You  need  not  take  so  much  trouble  with 
your  preparations;  Syria  and  Israel  will  have  more 
than  enough  to  do  presently  to  defend  their  own 
borders  from  Sargon.  Besides,  men  like  Rezin  and 
Pekah  are  not  men  to  be  afraid  of  hi  any  case ;  they 
have  neither  strength  nor  skill.  But  do  not  for 
heaven's  sake  call  in  Sargon;  if  you  do  you  will 
supply  him  with  an  excuse  for  meddling  and  we  shall 


98  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

never  get  rid  of  him.  This  was  good  counsel,  but 
Ahaz  was  too  short-sighted  and  panic-stricken  to 
take  much  notice  of  it,  so  in  oriental  fashion  Isaiah 
goes  on  to  paint  a  picture  of  future  disaster.  The 
land,  he  says,  will  soon  be  laid  waste,  and  future 
generations  will  rue  the  policy  now  being  determined 
upon.  In  the  end,  of  course,  things  will  come  all 
right,  for  God  will  not  abandon  His  people.  A  better 
and  wiser  prince  shall  arise  who  shall  restore  pros- 
perity to  Judah.  That  prince  is  not  yet  born,  but 
when  he  is,  his  name  shall  be  called  Immanuel,  — 
God  with  us.  In  another  place  he  describes  him  as 
Wonderful  Counsellor,  Divine  Hero,  Father  Ever- 
lasting, Prince  of  Peace.  "  Butter  and  honey  shall 
he  eat,"  because  there  will  be  nothing  else  left  after 
Assyria  has  swept  over  the  country,  but  the  disci- 
pline may  have  good  results  in  the  end,  and  will  serve 
to  bring  Judah  to  her  senses. 

There  is  something  strikingly  modern  about  all 
this,  and  it  is  a  good  example  of  the  way  in  which 
the  same  conditions  arise  over  and  over  again  in 
the  course  of  human  history.  It  is  plain  to  be  seen 
that  the  prophecy  here  indicated  was  only  the  shrewd 
common  sense  of  a  wise  and  patriotic  man  who  loved 
his  country  and  believed  in  God.  But  what  on  earth 
have  his  words  to  do  with  the  birth  of  Jesus  ?  It  is 
only  by  a  very  long  stretch  of  the  pious  imagination 
that  they  can  be  held  to  apply  to  Christianity  at  all. 
They  have  an  interest  of  their  own,  and  a  very  con- 
siderable interest,  too,  even  from  the  point  of  view  of 


THE  INCARNATION   OF    THE   SON   OF   GOD          99 

religion;  but  Isaiah  would  have  been  considerably 
astonished  to  be  told  that  they  would  have  to  wait 
seven  hundred  years  for  fulfilment.  To  a  certain 
extent  they  were  fulfilled  soon  afterward  in  the 
advent  of  the  well-meaning  but  not  very  brilliant 
king  Hezekiah.  I  have  dwelt  upon  this  passage  at 
some  length  because  it  is  a  fair  example  of  the  way 
in  which  Old  Testament  literature  has  been  pressed 
into  the  service  of  Christian  dogma.  What  I  am 
now  saying,  as  I  need  hardly  point  out,  is  not  my 
ipse  dixit;  expert  biblical  scholarship  has  been  saying 
it  for  a  long  time,  but  somehow  or  other  its  bearing 
upon  generally  accepted  dogmas  is  not  popularly 
realised.  It  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  Chris- 
tian preachers  who  know  the  truth  about  these  matters 
and  refrain  from  stating  it  plainly  are  doing  their  duty 
to  their  congregations.  No  Old  Testament  passage 
whatever  is  directly  or  indirectly  a  prophecy  of  the 
virgin  birth  of  Jesus.  To  insist  upon  this  may  seem 
to  many  like  beating  a  man  of  straw,  but  if  so  the 
man  of  straw  still  retains  a  good  deal  of  vitality. 

The  virgin  birth  in  the  gospels. — The  only  two 
gospels  in  which  the  virgin  birth  is  alluded  to  are 
Matthew  and  Luke,  and  the  nativity  stories  contained 
in  these  are  very  beautiful,  especially  those  peculiar 
to  Luke.  But  the  two  gospels  are  mutually  con- 
tradictory in  their  account  of  the  circumstances 
attending  the  miraculous  birth.  Each  contains  a 
genealogy  which  professes  to  be  that  of  Joseph,  not 
of  Mary,  and  these  are  inconsistent  with  each  other. 


100  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

What  has  the  genealogy  of  Joseph  got  to  do  with  the 
birth  of  Jesus  if  Jesus  were  not  his  own  son?  The 
conclusion  seems  probable  that  in  the  earlier  ver- 
sions of  these  gospels  the  miraculous  conception 
did  not  find  a  place,  or  else  that  two  inconsistent 
sources  have  been  drawn  upon  without  sufficient 
care  being  taken  to  reconcile  them.  But  this  is 
not  the  only  discrepancy.  Matthew  gives  Bethle- 
hem as  the  native  place  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  Luke 
says  Nazareth.  Matthew  says  not  a  word  about  the 
census  of  Cyrenius  as  the  motive  for  the  journey  to 
Bethlehem,  but  leads  us  to  suppose  that  the  holy 
family  were  already  in  residence  there.  Then 
again  he  tells  us  of  the  coming  of  the  wise  men  from 
the  East,  their  public  inquiry  as  to  the  whereabouts 
of  the  holy  child,  the  jealousy  of  Herod,  the  massacre 
of  the  innocents,  and  the  flight  into  Egypt.  Luke 
says  nothing  about  these  things,  but  gives  us  an 
entirely  different  set  of  wonders,  including  the 
attendance  of  an  angelic  host  and  the  annunciation 
to  the  shepherds.  So  far  from  recording  any  mas- 
sacre, or  any  hasty  flight,  he  tells  us  that  some  time 
after  His  birth  the  babe  was  taken  to  the  Temple 
at  Jerusalem  to  be  presented  to  the  Lord,  and  that 
afterwards  He  and  His  parents  "  returned  into 
Galilee  to  their  own  city  Nazareth."  According  to 
Matthew  Nazareth  was  an  afterthought  and  only 
became  the  residence  of  the  holy  family  after  the 
return  from  Egypt.  These  accounts  do  not  tally, 
and  no  ingenuity  can  reconcile  them.  The  nativity 


THE  INCARNATION  OF   THE   SON   OF   GOD        IOI 

stories  belong  to  the  poetry  of  religion,  not  to  his- 
tory. To  regard  them  as  narrations  of  actual  fact 
is  to  misunderstand  them.  They  are  better  than 
that ;  they  take  us  into  the  region  of  exalted  feeling 
and  give  us  a  vision  of  truth  too  great  for  prosaic 
statement.  Christianity  would  be  poorer  by  the 
loss  of  them,  but  they  are  not  indigenous  to  Chris- 
tianity. They  have  their  parallels  in  other  religions, 
some  of  them  much  older  than  the  advent  of  Jesus. 
The  beautiful  legends  surrounding  the  infancy  of 
Gautama,  for  example,  are  startlingly  similar  to 
those  contained  in  the  first  and  third  gospels.  Like 
Jesus,  the  Buddhist  messiah  is  stated  to  have  been 
of  royal  descent  and  was  born  of  a  virgin  mother. 
At  his  birth  a  supernatural  radiance  illuminated 
the  whole  district,  and  a  troop  of  heavenly  beings 
sang  the  praises  of  the  holy  child.  Later  on  a  wise 
man,  guided  by  special  portents,  recognised  him  as 
the  long-expected  and  divinely  appointed  light- 
briiiger  and  life-giver  of  mankind.  When  but 
a  youth  he  was  lost  for  a  tune  and  was  found  by  his 
father  in  the  midst  of  a  circle  of  holy  men,  sunk  in 
rapt  contemplation  of  the  great  mystery  of  existence. 
The  parallel  between  these  legends  and  the  Chris- 
tian version  of  the  marvels  attending  the  birth  of 
Jesus  is  so  close  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  its 
being  altogether  accidental.  There  must  have  been 
a  connection  somewhere,  and  indeed  there  is  no 
need  to  think  otherwise,  for  nothing  is  to  be  gained 
or  lost  by  admitting  it. 


102  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

Christianity  not  dependent  on  a  virgin  birth.  — 
But  why  hesitate  about  the  question?  The  great- 
ness of  Jesus  and  the  value  of  His  revelation  to 
mankind  are  in  no  way  either  assisted  or  diminished 
by  the  manner  of  His  entry  into  the  world.  Every 
birth  is  just  as  wonderful  as  a  virgin  birth  could 
possibly  be,  and  just  as  much  a  direct  act  of  God. 
A  supernatural  conception  bears  no  relation  what- 
ever to  the  moral  and  spiritual  worth  of  the  person 
who  is  supposed  to  enter  the  world  in  this  abnormal 
way.  The  credibility  and  significance  of  Chris- 
tianity are  in  no  way  affected  by  the  doctrine  of 
the  virgin  birth  otherwise  than  that  the  belief  tends 
to  put  a  barrier  between  Jesus  and  the  race  and  to 
make  Him  something  which  cannot  properly  be 
called  human.  Those  who  insist  on  the  doctrine 
will  find  themselves  in  danger  of  proving  too  much, 
for,  pressed  to  its  logical  conclusion,  it  removes 
Jesus  altogether  from  the  category  of  humanity 
in  any  real  sense.  Like  many  others,  I  used  to 
take  the  position  that  acceptance  or  non-acceptance 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  virgin  birth  was  immaterial 
because  Christianity  was  quite  independent  of  it, 
but  later  reflection  has  convinced  me  that  in  point 
of  fact  it  operates  as  a  hindrance  to  spiritual  religion 
and  a  real  living  faith  in  Jesus.  The  simple  and 
natural  conclusion  is  that  Jesus  was  the  child  of 
Joseph  and  Mary  and  had  an  uneventful  childhood. 

The  truth  in  the  doctrine  of  the  virgin  birth.  — 
And  yet,  as  with  every  tenet  which  has  held  a  place 


THE  INCARNATION   OF  THE   SON  OF   GOD       103 

in  human  thought  for  any  considerable  length  of 
time,  there  is  a  great  truth  contained  in  the  idea  of 
a  virgin  birth.  It  is  the  truth  that  the  emergence 
of  anything  great  and  beautiful  in  human  character 
and  achievement  is  the  work  of  the  divine  spirit 
operating  within  human  limitations.  This  idea 
is  very  ancient,  and  there  is  no  great  religion  which 
does  not  contain  it  in  some  form  or  other.  One 
form  of  it,  for  example,  can  be  discerned  in  the 
Babylonian  creation  myth  with  its  parallel  hi  the 
book  of  Genesis.  The  home  of  the  primitive  Chal- 
deans, the  stock  whence  Israelites,  Babylonians, 
Assyrians,  and  other  Semitic  communities  sprang, 
was  in  the  low-lying  territory  surrounding  the 
Persian  gulf.  During  the  rainy  seasons  these  lands 
were  flooded  by  the  overflow  of  the  great  rivers. 
The  sun  of  springtime,  rising  upon  this  mass  of 
waters  which  stretched  in  every  direction  as  far  as 
the  eye  could  see,  drew  forth  from  their  bosom  the 
life  and  beauty  of  summer  flowers  and  fruit.  From 
observation  of  this  regularly  recurring  phenomenon 
the  primitive  Semites  constructed  their  creation 
myth,  one  version  of  which  appeared  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  a  version  much  later 
than  the  Babylonian,  but  an  outgrowth  of  the  same 
idea.  They  thought  of  a  primeval  waste  of  water 
covering  everything.  As  the  writer  of  the  Genesis 
account  has  it:  "The  earth  was  without  form  and 
void,  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep." 
In  the  Babylonian  version  this  primeval  water  was 


IO4  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

personified  as  a  woman — Tiamat.  They  thought 
of  the  sun  of  heaven  as  impregnating  this  virgin 
matrix  with  the  seeds  of  cosmic  life  —  quite  an 
accurate  conception  from  the  modern  point  of  view. 
Later  on  this  idea  became  spiritualised  in  a  much 
higher  degree.  The  religious  mind  came  to  re- 
gard the  physical,  mundane,  or  distinctively  human 
principle  as  the  matrix  upon  which  the  spirit  of 
God  brooded,  bringing  to  the  birth  a  divine  idea. 
And  this  is  perfectly  true  too,  as  anyone  can  see. 
Nothing  great  and  noble  in  human  experience  can 
be  accounted  for  merely  in  terms  of  atoms  and  mole- 
cules. That  is  where  materialism  always  comes 
to  grief,  for  on  its  own  premises  it  cannot  account 
for  the  emergence  of  intelligence  and  all  the  higher 
qualities  of  human  nature.  A  divine  element,  a 
spiritual  quickening,  is  required  for  the  evolution 
of  anything  Godlike  hi  our  mundane  sphere;  it 
is  a  virgin  birth.  Lower  acting  upon  lower  can 
never  produce  a  higher.  It  is  the  downpouring 
and  incoming  of  the  higher  to  the  lower  which  pro- 
duces through  the  lower  the  divine  manhood  which 
leaves  the  brute  behind.  This  is  the  sense  in  which 
it  is  true  that  Jesus  was  of  divine  as  well  as  human 
parentage.  We  do  not  account  for  Him  merely  by 
saying  that  He  was  the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary 
and  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  prophets, 
priests,  and  kings;  we  have  to  recognise  that  His 
true  greatness  came  from  above. 
True  of  all  higher  human  experience.  — The 


THE   INCARNATION  OF  THE   SON   OF   GOD        IO$ 

same  thing  holds  good  in  a  lesser  degree  of  every- 
thing worthy  of  Jesus  in  human  experience.  We 
do  not  account  for  any  man's  goodness  or  greatness 
by  pointing  to  his  ancestry.  Heredity  may  account 
for  a  great  deal,  but  it  is  inadequate  as  an  explana- 
tion of  genius  or  high  moral  achievement.  If  we 
go  back  far  enough,  we  shall  find  that  our  ancestry 
was  barbarous,  and,  judging  from  its  tendencies, 
not  at  all  likely  to  produce  the  Christ-man  of  future 
ages.  Wherever  the  Christ-man  appears,  we  have 
to  acknowledge  that  the  principal  factor  in  his 
evolution  is  the  incoming  of  the  divine  spirit.  It 
is  only  another  way  of  stating  what  has  already 
been  stated  above,  that  the  true  man  or  higher  self 
is  divine  and  eternal,  integral  to  the  being  of  God, 
and  that  this  divine  manhood  is  gradually  but  surely 
manifesting  on  the  physical  plane.  The  lower  can- 
not produce  the  higher,  but  the  higher  is  shaping 
and  transforming  the  lower;  every  moral  and  spirit- 
ual advance  is  therefore  of  the  nature  of  a  virgin 
birth  —  a  quickening  from  above.  The  spiritual 
birth  described  in  the  conversation  between  our 
Lord  and  Nicodemus  as  given  in  the  third  of  John 
is,  properly  speaking,  a  virgin  birth.  "  That  which 
is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh  and  that  which  is  born  of 
the  spirit  is  spirit."  "  Ye  must  be  born  anew," 
or,  literally,  "  quickened  from  above."  Every  man 
who  deliberately  faces  towards  the  highest,  and 
feels  himself  reenforced  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in  so 
doing,  is  quickened  from  above;  the  divinely  human 


Io6  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

Christ  is  born  in  him,  the  Word  has  become  flesh 
and  is  manifested  to  the  world. 

Human  history  one  long  incarnation.  —  If  now 
we  can  turn  our  thoughts  away  for  a  moment  from 
the  individual  to  the  race  and  think  of  humanity 
as  one  being,  or  the  expression  of  one  being,  we  shall 
read  this  truth  on  a  larger  scale.  All  human  his- 
tory represents  the  incarnation  or  manifesting  of 
the  eternal  Son  or  Christ  of  God.  The  incarnation 
cannot  be  limited  to  one  life  only,  however  great 
that  life  may  be.  It  is  quite  a  false  idea  to  think  of 
Jesus  and  no  one  else  as  the  Son  of  God  incarnate. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  the  loving  reverence  for 
Jesus  which  would  lead  men  to  regard  Him  as  being 
and  expressing  something  to  which  none  of  the  rest 
of  us  can  ever  attain,  but  in  affirming  this  we  ac- 
tually rob  Him  of  a  glory  He  ought  to  receive. 
We  make  Him  unreal,  reduce  His  earthly  life  to  a 
sort  of  drama,  and  effect  a  drastic  distinction  in 
kind  between  Him  and  ourselves.  If  He  came  from 
the  farther  side  of  the  gulf  and  we  only  from  the 
hither;  if  we  are  humanity  without  divinity,  and 
He  divinity  that  has  only  assumed  humanity,  —  per- 
fect fellowship  between  Him  and  ourselves  is  im- 
possible. But  it  is  untrue  to  say  that  any  such 
distinction  exists.  Let  us  go  on  thinking  of  Jesus  as 
Christ,  the  very  Christ  of  glory,  but  let  us  realise 
that  that  same  Christ  is  seeking  expression  through 
every  human  soul.  He  is  incarnate  in  the  race  in 
order  that  by  means  of  limitation  He  may  manifest 


THE  INCARNATION   OF  THE   SON    OF   GOD        107 

the  innermost  of  God,  the  life  and  love  eternal. 
To  say  this  does  not  dethrone  Jesus;  it  lends  sig- 
nificance to  His  life  and  work.  He  is  on  the  throne 
and  the  sceptre  is  in  His  hand.  We  can  rise  toward 
Him  by  trusting,  loving,  and  serving  Him;  and  by 
so  doing  we  shall  demonstrate  that  we  too  are  Christ 
the  eternal  Son. 

To  think  of  all  human  life  as  a  manifestation  of 
the  eternal  Son,  renders  it  sacred.  Our  very  struggles 
and  sufferings  become  full  of  meaning.  Sin  is 
but  the  failure  to  realise  it;  it  is  being  false  to  our- 
selves and  our  divine  origin;  it  is  the  centrifugal 
tendency  hi  human  nature  just  as  love  is  the  cen- 
tripetal. There  is  no  life,  however  depraved,  which 
does  not  occasionally  emit  some  sign  of  its  kinship 
to  Jesus  and  its  eternal  sonship  to  God.  Wherever 
you  see  self-sacrifice  at  work  you  see  the  very  spirit 
of  Jesus,  the  spirit  of  the  Christ  incarnate.  I  find 
it  everywhere,  and  it  interprets  life  for  me  as  noth- 
ing else  can.  Take  up  any  work  of  fiction,  no 
matter  what,  and  you  will  find  the  author  instinc- 
tively preaching  this  truth.  Look  into  any  common- 
place, everyday  life,  no  matter  whose,  and  you  will 
find  it  exemplified.  Many  a  selfish  bad  man  has 
one  tender  spot  in  his  nature,  his  affection  for  his 
child,  and  for  the  sake  of  that  child  he  will  deny 
himself  as  he  has  never  dreamed  of  doing  for  any- 
thing else ;  so  far  as  that  one  influence  is  concerned 
he  actually  reverses  the  principle  which  governs  the 
rest  of  his  life.  I  have  read  of  an  African  negress 


108  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

who  on  one  occasion  was  beaten  nearly  to  death 
by  the  brute  to  whom  she  was  slave  and  paramour. 
Her  murderer,  for  such  he  was,  was  arrested  and 
placed  on  trial  for  his  misdemeanour,  in  accordance 
with  the  rough  justice  of  the  white  man  in  his  deal- 
ings with  the  native.  In  the  night  the  poor  dying 
woman  crawled  painfully  to  the  tree  against  which 
the  ruffian  lay  bound,  cut  his  cords,  and  set  him  free. 
It  was  her  last  act  in  this  life;  in  the  morning  she 
was  found  lying  dead  on  the  spot  whence  the  prisoner 
had  fled.  This  particular  story  may  or  may  not 
be  true,  but  the  same  kind  of  thing  has  been  true 
a  million  times  in  human  history.  What  was  the 
spirit  in  this  benighted  woman  of  the  African  wilds 
but  the  Christ  spirit,  the  self-giving  spirit  seen  with 
such  unique  sublimity  in  the  life  of  Jesus? 

Look  abroad  all  through  the  world,  look  back 
upon  the  slow,  upward  progress  of  humanity  to  its 
home  in  God,  and  you  will  read  the  story  of  the 
incarnation  of  the  eternal  Son.  Never  has  there 
been  an  hour  so  dark  but  that  some  gleams  of  this 
eternal  light  have  pierced  the  murky  pall  of  human 
ignorance  and  sin;  never  have  bitter  hate  and 
fiendish  cruelty  gone  altogether  unrelieved  by  the 
human  tenderness  and  self-devotion  that  testify  of 
God.  Indeed  without  the  limitation,  the  struggle, 
and  the  pain,  how  would  this  Christ  spirit  ever  have 
known  itself  ?  Granted  that  self -surrender  had  never 
been  called  for  by  the  conditions  of  life,  granted  that 
our  resources  had  always  known  themselves  in- 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  THE  SON  OF  GOD       109 

finite,  and  that  which  is  worthiest  and  sublimest 
in  the  nature  of  God  and  man  alike  could  never 
have  been  revealed.  This  is  why  the  eternal  Son 
has  become  incarnate;  this  is  what  we  are  here 
to  do,  and  upon  the  faithful  doing  of  it  depends 
our  experience  of  the  joy  that  the  world  can  neither 
give  nor  take  away.  The  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
are  the  central  expression  and  ideal  embodiment 
of  this  age-long  process,  a  process  the  consummation 
of  which  will  be  the  glorious  return  and  triumphant 
ingathering  of  a  redeemed  and  perfectly  unified 
humanity  to  God.  "  And  when  all  things  shall  be 
subdued  unto  him,  then  shall  the  Son  also  himself 
be  subject  unto  him  that  put  all  things  under  him, 
that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 


CHAPTER 

THE  ATONEMENT 

I.   Association  of  the  Doctrine  with  Jesus 

Importance  of  the  subject.  — This  brings  us  to 
a  subject,  which,  more  than  any  other,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  that  of  the  person  of  Jesus,  has  come 
under  discussion  at  the  present  time.  In  the  course 
of  Christian  history  it  has  created  a  more  extensive 
literature  than  probably  any  other  doctrine.  I 
mean  the  subject  variously  known  as  Salvation, 
Redemption,  Atonement,  and  with  which  the  terms 
Forgiveness,  Expiation,  Reconciliation,  Ransom, 
Justification,  Propitiation,  Satisfaction,  Sanctifica- 
tion,  and  such  like  have  been  commonly  associated. 
The  Christian  doctrine  of  Atonement,  as  we  may 
call  it  for  convenience,  bulks  so  large  in  Christian 
thought  that  all  others  may  be  held  to  be  dependent 
upon  it,  even  that  of  the  person  of  Jesus;  for, 
according  to  the  received  theology,  Jesus  became 
incarnate  for  our  redemption,  and  that  redemption 
can  only  be  accomplished  by  one  who  is  very 
God. 

The   need  for  an  adequate   explanation.  —  But 

there  is  no  subject  upon  which  modem  Christian 

no 


THE   ATONEMENT  III 

thought  is  less  coherent  than  this.  We  are  con- 
stantly hearing  the  statement  that  a  rational  theory 
of  the  Atonement  is  badly  wanted,  or  that  it  is  our 
duty  to  preach  the  fact  without  a  theory,  or  that 
the  Atonement  is  such  a  mystery  that  no  theory  is 
possible  and  we  must  just  accept  it  on  faith.  This 
confession  of  helplessness  shows  that  there  is  some- 
thing seriously  wrong  with  the  conventional  presen- 
tation of  the  doctrine.  But  I  do  not  think  the 
Atonement  is  such  a  very  great  mystery>after  all,  and 
it  ought  to  be  possible  to  get  at  the  heart  of  it  with- 
out stultifying  the  intellect.  Anyhow,  let  us  try. 

The  usual  theological  method  of  expounding  it.  — 
As  a  rule  treatises  on  the  Atonement  begin  with 
an  examination  of  the  Scripture  passages  which  are 
supposed  to  have  a  bearing  upon  it.  Then  follows 
a  careful  examination  and  criticism  of  the  various 
theories  of  it  which  have  successively  held  the  field 
during  its  history;  the  author  concludes  by  giving 
us  his  own.  I  do  not  propose  to  follow  that  method, 
for  it  does  not  possess  a  living  interest  for  the  mind 
of  to-day;  the  psychological  should  take  precedence 
of  the  historical.  I  do  not  feel  called  upon  to  take 
the  doctrine  of  Atonement  for  granted  and  then 
proceed  to  try  to  find  a  place  for  it  in  Christian 
experience.  On  the  contrary,  I  prefer  to  take  human 
nature  for  granted  and  inquire  whether  it  needs 
anything  like  a  doctrine  of  Atonement.  If  it  does 
not,  let  the  doctrine  go;  if  it  does,  let  us  see  that 
the  doctrine  is  presented  in  a  reasonable  fashion. 


p 

112  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

If  it  cannot  be  presented  reasonably,  it  is  not  wanted. 
But  I  think  it  is  wanted,  and  more  than  wanted; 
it  is  already  taken  for  granted  by  everyone  who 
thinks  seriously  about  life,  whether  it  is  called  by 
its  theological  name  or  not. 

Outline  of  present-day  accepted  belief  in  regard 
to  it.  —  Before  I  proceed  to  attempt  to  justify 
these  statements  let  me  ask  my  readers  to  call  to 
mind  the  outline  of  what  they  have  been  taught 
in  reference  to  this  great  fundamental  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Part  of  it  has  already  been  indicated, 
for  it  was  hardly  possible  to  avoid  it  when  con- 
sidering such  a  subject  as  that  of  the  nature  of  evil 
or  the  divinity  of  Jesus.  Roughly  stated  it  is  as 
follows:  Our  fallen  humanity  is  separated  from 
and  under  the  displeasure  of  God.  God  longs  to 
save  us  from  our  sin,  but  justice  demands  that  He 
must  punish  us.  The  world  is  already  an  unhappy 
place  because  of  sin,  but  what  we  endure  here  is 
nothing  to  what  we  shall  have  to  endure  presently 
when  we  cross  the  river  of  death;  we  shall  all  go 
to  hell,  a  place  of  never-ending  torment,  unless  some 
means  can  be  found  of  justifying  us  before  God  ere 
we  pass  over.  This  means  has  been  found  in  the 
self-devotion  of  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity. 
The  sinless  Son  of  God  took  upon  Himself  the  like- 
ness of  sinful  humanity,  was  born  into  this  world, 
lived  here  for  a  few  years,  suffered  a  violent  death, 
and  then  reascended  to  His  Father  to  make  unceas- 
ing intercession  for  mankind.  It  was  the  dying  of 


THE  ATONEMENT  113 

the  death  that  was  the  all-important  thing.  It  was 
in  consideration  of  this  death  that  God  agreed  to 
pardon  sin.  Jesus  was  put  to  death  because  God 
had  arranged  that  He  should  be  put  to  death,  and 
because  Jesus  was  willing  to  be  put  to  death,  in 
order  that  a  satisfactory  offering  might  be  made  to 
divine  justice  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  God  had 
to  punish  someone  before  he  could  be  free  to  forgive 
His  erring  children,  and  therefore  with  the  consent 
of  Jesus  He  punished  Him.  The  whole  scheme 
was  prearranged  in  heaven,  cross  and  all,  and 
therefore  Jesus  was  not  taken  by  surprise  when  the 
end  came;  He  was,  in  fact,  a  party  to  it,  and  His 
murderers  were  in  a  sense  only  the  instruments 
of  a  beneficent,  foreordained  plan.  God  accepts 
this  sacrifice  as  a  full  and  complete  equivalent 
for  all  that  humanity  deserves,  but  we  must  individu- 
ally appropriate  it  by  faith  or  it  will  not  avail  for 
us ;  we  shall  go  to  hell  all  the  same.  If  on  the  other 
hand  we  do  claim  the  benefit  of  this  finished  work, 
the  merits  of  the  Redeemer  are  imputed  to  us;  we 
are  held  to  be  justified  before  God,  and  are  gradu- 
ally sanctified  by  the  Holy  Spirit  operating  within 
our  souls  and  fashioning  us  into  the  moral  likeness 
of  our  Lord. 

Conventional  view  both  true  and  false. — To 
say  that  these  statements  are  wholly  untrue  is 
impossible,  for  they  everyone  contain  a  truth  of 
considerable  value,  but  as  popularly  stated  they  are 
misleading.  This  view  of  the  Atonement  is  unethi- 


114  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

cal,  and,  in  my  judgment  and  that  of  many  others, 
has  wrought  a  good  deal  of  mischief  in  the  past  and 
bewilderment  in  the  present.  Some  readers  of 
these  pages  will  no  doubt  find  fault  with  me  for 
stating  it  so  baldly,  and  will  maintain  that  no  front- 
rank  theologian  or  preacher  would  enunciate  it  in 
these  terms  to-day.  Once  again  I  can  only  repeat 
that  they  use  language  which  implies  it,  and  it 
seems  impossible  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  they 
are  driven  to  use  the  vaguer  language  because  of 
their  own  feeling  that  the  balder  statement,  which 
their  predecessors  made  without  hesitation,  is 
intellectually  and  morally  impossible,  and  yet  they 
do  not  know  what  to  put  in  its  place.  They  are 
reluctant  to  give  up  the  belief  that  in  some  way  or 
other  the  death  of  Jesus  on  Calvary  actually  effected 
something  in  the  unseen  by  making  God  propitious 
toward  us  and  removing  the  barrier  which  pre- 
vented Him  from  freely  forgiving  human  sin.  Of 
course  they  add  other  and  valuable  elements  in  their 
discussion  of  the  theme,  but  this  is  their  central  idea 
and  they  seldom  get  away  from  it.  The  typical 
theologian  never  seems  to  think  of  looking  at  the 
death  of  Jesus  from  the  purely  human  point  of 
view,  and  yet  surely  this  is  the  only  legitimate  thing 
to  do  when  trying  to  get  at  the  heart  of  the  subject. 
It  is  what  we  should  do  in  any  other  case  of  a  like 
kind ;  we  should  never  dream  of  doing  anything  else. 
We  have  no  business  to  begin  speculating  upon 
transcendental  questions  until  we  have  examined 


THE   ATONEMENT  115 

the  purely  human  causes  of  such  an  event  as  the 
crucifixion  of  Jesus.  When  an  adherent  of  the 
so-called  orthodox  view  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment is  pressed  to  say  just  what  he  supposes  the 
death  of  Jesus  to  have  effected  in  the  mind  of  God 
so  as  to  free  humanity  from  its  curse,  he  usually 
takes  refuge  in  phrases  about  the  "  mystery  of  the 
cross,"  and  so  on.  He  does  not  say  in  plain  lan- 
guage exactly  what  he  means,  for  the  truth  is  he 
does  not  know;  he  only  believes  what  he  has  been 
told,  and  has  persuaded  himself  that  it  is  of  the  ut- 
most value  to  Christian  experience,  which  it  is  not 
and  never  was.  The  doctrine  as  popularly  held 
is  not  only  not  true  but  it  ought  not  to  be  true;  it 
is  a  serious  hindrance  to  spiritual  religion.  Why 
in  the  world  should  God  require  such  a  sacrifice 
before  feeling  Himself  free  to  forgive  His  erring 
children?  And  why  should  it  be  regarded  as  in 
any  real  sense  a  substitute  for  what  is  due  from  us 
or  any  equivalent  for  what  we  should  otherwise 
have  to  bear?  Once  more,  perhaps,  the  dogmatic 
theologian  will  pull  me  up  sharply  and  say  that  I 
am  misrepresenting  him,  but  I  think  I  am  on  fairly 
safe  ground  in  declaring  that  this  is  what  the  ordi- 
nary man  in  the  pew  as  well  as  the  man  in  the  street 
understands  by  the  saving  work  of  Jesus,  and  he 
does  so  because  of  the  language  of  the  pulpit  backed 
by  the  theological  college  preceptor.  If  this  is  the 
Atonement,  there  is  little  wonder  that  thoughtful 
minds  will  have  nothing  to  say  to  it  and  that  so 


Il6  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

many  good  people  are  puzzled  to  know  what  to 
think  about  it. 
The  human  causes  of  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus.  — 

If  the  death  of  Jesus  took  place  under  similar 
circumstances  to-day,  we  should  be  in  no  doubt  as 
to  what  to  call  it.  It  was  a  barbarous  and  wicked 
murder  instigated  by  base  and  unscrupulous  men 
who  wanted  to  get  rid  of  a  dangerous  teacher. 
We  do  not  need  to  search  far  in  order  to  find  reasons 
for  the  tragedy.  There  were  reasons  enough  in  the 
antagonism  which  had  long  existed  between  Jesus 
and  the  ecclesiastical  rulers  of  Judea.  Jesus  held 
and  taught  a  certain  ideal  concerning  human  life 
and  its  relation  to  God.  At  the  beginning  of  His 
brief  public  ministry  He  seems  to  have  thought  that 
His  invitation  to  men  to  realise  their  divine  sonship 
would  meet  with  a  ready  response,  and  that  therefore 
the  kingdom  of  God  would  without  great  difficulty 
be  established  upon  earth  through  the  working  of 
the  spirit  of  love  in  human  hearts.  At  first  He  gained 
an  extensive  hearing  because  the  Jewish  people  were 
willing  and  ready  to  listen  to  any  teacher  who  would 
hold  out  to  them  some  hope  of  a  better  and  happier 
day.  Consequently  He  was  for  a  time  extremely 
popular,  and  even  the  Pharisees  deliberated  as  to 
whether  He  might  prove  to  be  the  long-expected 
leader  who  should  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel. 
But  this  attitude  soon  changed.  People  and  rulers 
alike  became  disappointed  with  Jesus.  They  were 
looking  for  a  kingdom  which  should  come  by  force, 


THE  ATONEMENT  117 

and  Jesus  for  one  which  should  come  by  love. 
They  wanted  material  benefits  forthwith,  while  to 
Jesus  these  were  altogether  a  secondary  matter. 
Then,  too,  He  became  an  inconvenience.  His  stand- 
ard of  rectitude  was  exacting.  He  saw  through 
the  hypocrisies  and  villanies  of  many  of  those  who 
posed  as  the  guides  and  directors  of  the  nation,  and 
He  was  not  silent  about  them.  He  spoke  out  without 
fear  or  hesitation.  What  other  people  had  been 
thinking  and  dared  not  say  He  said  without  pausing 
to  consider  what  the  consequences  might  be.  No 
wonder  the  ecclesiastics  came  to  feel  that  He  must 
be  silenced  at  any  cost.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed 
that  people  in  general  were  offended  by  His  plain 
language  concerning  those  in  high  places,  but 
then  they  wanted  Him  to  do  something  besides 
talk.  They  wanted  to  see  Him  drive  out  the 
Roman  without  delay  and  inaugurate  the  era  of 
power  and  plenty.  Jesus  saw  well  enough  what  the 
end  of  all  this  must  be.  He  must  either  temporise 
a  little,  or  go  away  and  hide,  or  go  straight  on  doing 
His  work  until  the  night  came  and  He  could  work 
no  more.  He  decided  for  the  last-named  course, 
leaving  the  results  to  God.  It  was  in  the  line  of  His 
duty  to  go  up  to  Jersualem  for  the  feast  of  the  Pass- 
over, so  to  Jerusalem  He  went.  He  could  hardly 
have  been  under  any  delusion  as  to  what  awaited 
Him  there.  The  crowds  in  the  capital  were  very 
excited  about  Him;  His  name  was  on  every  lip,  and 
there  were  many  who  would  have  declared  for  Him 


Il8  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

at  once  if  He  had  only  offered  Himself  as  the  national 
champion  against  the  foreigner.  But  by  this  time 
priests,  Pharisees,  and  scribes  understood  that,  in 
their  sense  of  the  word,  a  national  champion  He 
would  never  be.  The  crisis  was  reached  at  the 
cleansing  of  the  Temple.  The  moral  greatness,  the 
tremendous  impressiveness,  of  the  personality  of 
Jesus  were  never  more  clearly  demonstrated  than  on 
this  occasion.  There  was  no  earthly  reason  why 
dove-sellers,  money-changers,  priests,  and  Temple 
officials  should  be  driven  pell-mell  out  of  pre- 
cincts they  had  come  to  look  upon  as  their  own,  except 
that  they  were  overawed  by  the  stern  majesty  of 
this  wonderful  Galilean.  For  a  brief  hour  Jesus 
was  master  of  the  situation;  the  next  day  He  was 
arrested.  The  thing  had  to  be  done  secretly  and 
quickly,  but  those  who  planned  it  calculated  rightly. 
No  sooner  was  Jesus  made  a  prisoner  than  the  popu- 
lace turned  against  Him  and  clamoured  for  His 
destruction.  Those  who  know  something  of  mob 
psychology  will  readily  understand  this.  Human 
passion  easily  swings  from  adoration  to  hate,  as 
history  has  shown  over  and  over  again.  If  a  strong 
man  fails  in  a  conflict  of  forces  in  a  time  of  great 
public  excitement,  he  is  rarely  allowed  to  sink  quietly 
into  oblivion;  the  mob  turns  upon  him  with  the 
savagery  of  a  wild  beast.  Napoleon  was  one  day 
driving  through  the  streets  of  Paris  amid  cheering 
crowds.  One  of  his  suite  remarked  to  him  that  it 
must  be  gratifying  to  see  how  his  subjects  loved  him. 


THE   ATONEMENT  1 19 

"Bah !"  said  the  Emperor,  "The  same  rabble  would 
cheer  just  as  madly  if  I  were  going  to  the  guil- 
lotine." He  was  right.  It  was  just  the  same  with 
this  Jerusalem  crowd.  The  populace  thought 
that  the  Jesus  who  had  seemed  so  strong  was  not 
so  strong  after  all,  and  therefore  their  base  fury 
vented  itself  upon  Him  just  as  priests  and  Pharisees 
had  foreseen. 

These  were  the  immediate  causes  of  the  death  of 
Jesus.  His  execution  was  a  judicial  murder  done  to 
gratify  sacerdotal  spite  and  popular  passion,  and  the 
men  who  took  part  in  it  were  guilty  of  what  has  proved 
to  be  the  blackest  deed  in  history.  The  same  type 
of  man  exists  to-day,  as  he  has  existed  in  every  age, 
and  if  Jesus  came  again  without  saying  who  He 
was,  history  would  repeat  itself.  I  do  not  suppose 
His  enemies  would  nail  Him  on  a  wooden  cross,  — 
public  opinion  would  forbid  that  now,  thanks  to 
nineteen  centuries  of  His  gospel,  —  but  they  would 
find  some  means  of  making  Him  suffer,  and  they 
would  invoke  His  own  name  to  justify  them  in  doing 
it. 

The  reason  why  there  was  no  supernatural  in- 
terference. —  But  is  this  all  that  can  be  said  about 
the  matter?  Where  does  God  come  in?  Why 
was  a  crime  of  this  sort  ever  permitted?  Why 
has  the  memory  of  it  actually  become  a  religious 
dogma  ?  Other  people  have  been  put  to  death  quite 
as  unjustly,  and  the  results,  though  great,  are  not 
to  be  compared  with  those  which  have  followed  from 


I2O  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

the  death  of  Jesus.  Why  is  this?  As  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  the  popular  view  of  the  doctrine  of 
Atonement  presumes  that  this  foul  deed  was  in  some 
way,  as  the  scripture  has  it,  by  "the  determinate 
counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God."  Was  it  really 
so?  Was  the  whole  dreadful  drama  merely  a 
programme  to  be  gone  through  in  all  its  appointed 
stages,  ending  with  the  cry  of  the  victim,  "It  is 
finished  "  ? 

There  is  one  sense,  and  only  one,  in  which  such 
a  deed  can  be  said  to  have  been  by  the  determinate 
counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God,  and  that  is  that 
God  did  not  interfere  to  save  Jesus  from  the  last 
dread  ordeal.  He  allowed  wickedness  to  do  its 
worst,  and  thereby  made  the  disinterested  nobleness 
of  the  character  of  Jesus  all  the  clearer.  In  such 
a  time  as  that  in  which  Jesus  lived  such  a  life  as  His 
was  sure  to  end  on  a  Calvary  of  some  kind,  unless  He 
ran  away  from  it,  or  God  supernaturally  intervened 
to  save  Him.  Neither  event  happened.  If  Jesus 
had  shrunk  from  the  full  consequences  of  His  actions; 
if  He  had  temporised,  concealed  Himself,  tried  to 
gain  time,  or  adopted  any  other  subterfuge  or  ex- 
pedient in  order  to  save  His  life  —  that  life  would 
not  have  the  moral  power  it  possesses  or  shine  with 
such  glorious  lustre  in  the  world  to-day.  Super- 
natural interference  would  have  dimmed  the  moral 
beauty  of  the  faith,  courage,  and  perfect  self-devotion 
of  Jesus.  The  moral  worth  of  any  act  of  self-sacrifice, 
no  matter  on  what  scale  it  is  performed,  is  depend- 


THE  ATONEMENT  121 

ent  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  done  without  regard  to 
consequences.  If  we  could  see  with  absolute  clearness 
the  sure  and  certain  result  of  any  action,  if  we  could 
know,  as  unquestionably  as  that  two  and  two  make 
four,  that  it  would  always  pay  to  do  the  right  thing, 
the  very  soul  of  goodness  would  have  gone  out  of  it. 
It  is  just  because  we  do  not  know,  save  with  the 
deeper  knowledge  that  contradicts  appearances,  — 
the  knowledge  that  is  rightly  termed  faith,  —  that  an 
unselfish  action  is  in  accord  with  the  general  lightness 
of  the  universe,  and  therefore  must  prevail  in  the  end, 
that  there  is  anything  praiseworthy  in  it.  The 
determinate  counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God  were 
that  this  should  be  fully  demonstrated  in  the  ex- 
perience of  Jesus,  as  it  has  been  in  the  experience  of 
many  a  one  of  His  followers  since.  Once  more  there- 
fore we  come  to  the  last  word  of  the  cosmos,  manifes- 
tation by  sacrifice;  and  the  experience  of  Jesus  is  the 
sum  and  centre  of  it  all.  The  reason  why  the  name  of 
Jesus  has  such  power  in  the  world  to-day  is  because 
a  perfectly  noble  and  unselfish  life  was  crowned  by 
a  perfectly  sacrificial  death.  Both  were  needed; 
either  without  the  other  would  have  been  incomplete. 
Many  a  British  soldier  has  died  as  brave  a  death  as 
Jesus,  but  none  have  ever  lived  the  life  of  Jesus. 
The  life  and  death  together  were  a  perfect  self- 
offering,  the  offering  of  the  unit  to  the  whole,  the 
individual  to  the  race,  the  Son  to  the  Father,  and 
therefore  the  greatest  manifestation  of  the  inner- 
most of  God  that  has  ever  been  made  to  the  world. 


122  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

It  makes  the  sacrifice  unreal  to  speak  of  it  as  though 
Jesus  knew  the  end  from  the  beginning  and  foresaw 
every  stage  in  the  programme  before  He  came  to  it. 
He  did  not;  He  shrank  from  the  shameful  end  just 
as  we  should  have  done,  and  prayed  to  God  to  save 
Him  from  it.  An  immense  amount  of  pious  nonsense 
has  been  spoken  and  written  about  our  Lord's 
agony  in  Gethsemane.  We  have  been  told  that  in 
this  dreadful  hour  the  sorrow  of  Jesus  bore  no  relation 
to  his  physical  death,  but  was  caused  by  His  myste- 
rious self -identification  with  all  the  sins  of  mankind, 
past,  present,  and  to  come.  To  add  to  the  horror 
God  the  Father  turned  His  face  away  from  Him, 
treating  Him  as  though  He  were  indeed  the  embodi- 
ment of  all  the  guilt  of  mankind,  the  scapegoat 
driven  into  the  wilderness.  I  have  never  been  able 
to  read  this  kind  of  thing  without  an  inner  protest 
against  the  unreality  of  it;  it  precludes  the  possibility 
of  understanding  Jesus  or  entering  sympathetically 
into  an  experience  in  which  to  a  greater  or  less  degree 
every  noble  soul  has  sooner  or  later  to  share  with 
Him.  The  only  way  to  explain  Gethsemane  is  to 
approach  it  from  the  purely  human  point  of  view, 
as  we  have  already  done  with  the  causes  which  led 
up  to  the  crucifixion.  Let  us  try  to  put  ourselves 
in  the  sufferer's  place,  a  perfectly  legitimate  and  right 
thing  to  do.  How  would  any  of  us  have  felt  in  the 
circumstances  of  Jesus?  Suppose  that  you  had 
laboured  consistently  and  whole-heartedly,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  to  get  men  to  realise  their  divine 


THE   ATONEMENT  123 

sonship  and  live  the  life  that  is  life  indeed.  Suppose 
you  had  seen  your  hopes  perish  one  by  one,  and  that 
materialism,  selfishness,  and  hypocrisy  seemed  to 
have  become  all  the  stronger  for  your  protest.  Sup- 
pose you  saw  evil  gathering  head  against  you,  that 
you  found  yourself  left  utterly  alone,  and  that  even 
God  seemed  to  be  silent  in  this  hour  of  tragic  failure. 
Here  are  your  enemies  triumphant  at  the  gate, 
thirsting  for  your  blood.  Beyond  that  gate,  be- 
trayal, torture,  and  public  shame  are  waiting  for 
you.  In  the  background  of  all  stands  the  cruel 
gibbet  to  which  your  own  countrymen,  the  people 
you  have  loved  with  an  all-absorbing  love,  shall 
presently  commit  you.  Tell  me  what  you  would  pray 
in  like  circumstances.  Your  agony  would  be  just 
as  great  as  that  of  Jesus,  though  perhaps  your  prayer 
would  lack  His  magnificent  faith  and  ungrudging 
self-surrender.  Jesus  went  to  His  death  having 
nothing  to  rely  upon  except  His  inner  conviction  that 
God  and  the  cause  of  truth  were  one,  and  that  some- 
how or  other  in  the  end  that  would  be  made  plain 
to  Himself  and  all  the  world.  It  would  have  been 
the  same  no  matter  what  had  been  the  particular 
death  that  Jesus  died.  His  murderers  might  have 
taken  His  life  in  any  one  of  a  thousand  ways  and  the 
ultimate  result  would  have  been  just  as  we  see  it 
now.  They  might  have  hanged,  drowned,  or  burnt 
Him,  in  which  case  the  stake  or  the  hangman's  rope 
would  have  become  the  symbol  of  the  world's  re- 
demption, but,  after  the  fashion  of  their  time,  they 


124  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

crucified  Him;  it  was  the  worst  they  could  do,  and 
they  wanted  to  do  the  worst.  At  Calvary  perfect 
love  joined  issue  with  perfect  hate,  perfect  goodness 
with  perfect  wickedness,  and  became  victorious 
by  enduring  the  worst  and  remaining  pure  and 
unchanged  to  the  last. 

The  moral  outcome.  —  But  it  was  not  the  last 
after  all;  the  world  had  still  to  reckon  with  God. 
That  life  and  death  have  become  a  moral  force,  a 
spiritual  dynamic  greater  than  any  before  or  since, 
just  because  of  the  completeness  of  the  self-offer- 
ing that  culminated  on  Calvary's  cross.  I  must  not 
anticipate  what  I  have  to  say  about  the  resurrection 
further  than  to  remark  that  more  came  out  of  the 
tomb  of  Jesus  than  ever  went  into  it.  When  all 
seemed  lost  this  buried  life  arose  in  power  in  other 
lives  that  up  till  then  had  never  fully  known  its 
divine  greatness  and  spiritual  beauty. 

This  is  the  truth  about  the  death  of  Jesus,  and 
nothing  needs  to  be  added  to  show  how  great  an 
event  in  the  dealings  of  God  with  men  it  must  have 
been.  It  was  both  simple  and  sublime.  Theological 
word-spinning  only  serves  to  obscure  its  true  sig- 
nificance. Show  to  the  world  the  real  Jesus;  tell 
men  how  it  came  about  that  He  had  to  die,  and  they 
cannot  help  but  love  Him. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  ATONEMENT 

II.   Semitic  Ideas  of  Atonement 

Atonement  in  history. — What,  then,  has  this  death 
to  do  with  the  Atonement?  A  great  deal;  but  the 
best  way  to  answer  the  question  will  be  to  obtain 
a  clear  idea  as  to  what  the  Atonement  really  means 
and  always  has  meant  to  Christian  experience, 
notwithstanding  the  tortuous  ways  in  which  the 
doctrine  has  been  articulated.  I  am  convinced  that 
underneath  every  genuine  attempt  to  explain  the 
Atonement  which  has  ever  held  the  field  for  any 
length  of  time  in  Christian  history  the  same  truth  is 
always  to  be  found.  It  is  so  even  with  the  statement 
of  it  which  is  supposed  to  be  orthodox  to-day,  but 
which  is  quite  modem  after  all,  and  is  practically 
discredited  by  all  thoughtful  minds.  The  mental 
dialect  changes  from  one  generation  to  another,  but 
truth  does  not.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  statements  of 
truth  are  but  conventional  symbols  at  the  best, 
and  possess  only  the  ethical  and  emotional  value 
associated  with  them  in  our  minds.  This  is  why 
venerable  propositions  which  seem  obscurantist  to 

us  originally  possessed  vital  significance  to  their 
125 


126  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

framers;  the  ethical  and  emotional  content  were 
greater  than  the  form  of  statement,  as  they  always 
must  be.  Every  one  of  my  readers  is  no  doubt 
aware  of  the  power  possessed  by  some  particular 
landscape  or  piece  of  music  to  awaken  certain  emo- 
tions in  the  heart  or  bring  back  the  memory  of  certain 
events  to  the  mind.  The  same  scene  or  song  might 
not  do  this  for  anyone  else  because  the  associations 
are  different.  It  is  much  the  same  with  the  forms 
in  which  religious  truth  is  stated  from  age  to  age. 
The  form  is  no  more  the  truth  than  the  landscape 
is  the  emotion  or  recollection  it  excites ;  it  is  only  a 
symbol  for  the  truth.  To  grasp  this  clearly  should 
not  only  make  us  more  tolerant  of  archaic  confes- 
sions of  faith,  but  should  help  us  to  realise  that  truth 
is  one  even  under  apparently  contradictory  forms  of 
statement.  It  is  our  duty  in  religion  as  in  everything 
else  to  endeavour  to  express  the  content  of  spiritual 
experience  in  the  forms  which  best  accord  with  the 
mental  dialect  of  our  own  day.  I  repeat,  therefore, 
that  underneath  every  one  of  the  principal  forms  of 
statement  in  which  the  doctrine  of  Atonement  has 
been  presented  in  the  past  the  same  truth  is  to  be 
found.  It  is  an  interesting  historical  and  psycho- 
logical study  to  try  to  find  out  what  it  is. 

Atonement  in  the  Old  Testament.  —  As  I  have 
already  said  above,  it  is  usual  for  writers  on 
the  Atonement  to  begin  by  taking  scripture  for 
granted  and  presenting  an  examination  of  the  prin- 
cipal passages  in  which  the  Atonement  is  thought 


THE   ATONEMENT  127 

to  be  presumed  or  declared.  But  if  what  I  have  just 
said  be  true,  we  have  to  get  behind  even  the  language 
of  scripture  and  ask  how  the  writers  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  came  to  use  these  particular  symbols 
and  what  they  originally  meant.  The  word  "atone- 
ment" is  not  an  exact  translation  of  any  one  Old 
Testament  term,  but  connotes  a  group  of  related 
religious  ideas.  In  its  Christian  use  other  elements 
enter  into  it  from  Greek  thought  which  are  not  to  be 
found  in  the  Old  Testament.  But  the  Old  Testa- 
ment source  of  the  ideas  as  well  as  the  term  is  much 
older  than  the  Greek,  and  therefore  we  are  right  in 
looking  to  the  Old  Testament  for  the  origin  of  the 
doctrine  which  has  taken  such  an  important  place 
in  Christianity.  But  here  again  modem  research 
has  opened  up  an  enormous  field  of  investigation. 
Israel  was  a  member  of  a  vast  family  of  nations  all 
of  which  had  sprung  from  one  stock,  and  of  which 
the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians  were  the  most  pow- 
erful representatives.  The  Israelites  were,  politically 
speaking,  a  comparatively  insignificant  folk  sur- 
rounded by  mighty  empires  which  had  attained  a 
a  high  degree  of  civilisation.  The  excavations  which 
are  now  proceeding  in  oriental  lands,  especially  the 
territories  occupied  by  ancient  Assyria,  Babylonia, 
and  Egypt,  are  bringing  much  valuable  and  interest- 
ing matter  to  light.  We  find  that  the  civilisation 
of  these  peoples  was  much  older  than  up  to  now 
scholars  have  believed.  The  communities  inhabiting 
the  land  of  Canaan,  for  example,  had  developed  a 


128  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

complex  political  and  commercial  organisation  long 
before  the  Israelitish  invasion;  Canaan  was  in  fact 
the  highway  along  which  passed  the  commerce  of 
Egypt  with  the  mighty  nations  to  the  north.  The 
painstaking  efforts  of  expert  explorers  are  bringing 
vast  forgotten  literatures  to  light  and  reconstituting 
for  us  the  religious  ideas  and  modes  of  life  of  these 
people  of  the  ancient  world.  One  result  of  these 
researches  has  been  to  prove  that  Hebrew  religious 
ideas  were  closely  allied  to  those  of  other  Semitic 
peoples,  and  even  the  way  in  which  they  were  ex- 
pressed owed  not  a  little  to  older  civilisations.  In 
nothing  was  this  more  clearly  the  case  than  with  the 
ideas  included  afterward  in  the  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment. The  word  translated  Atonement  in  our  ver- 
sion of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures  played  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  Old  Testament  sacrificial  system, 
and  this  again  was  closely  connected  with  Semitic 
modes  of  worship  in  general. 

The  Day  of  Atonement. — There  was  one  great 
day  in  the  Jewish  religious  year  called  the  Day  of 
Atonement,  when  a  special  ritual  was  gone  through 
and  special  offerings  made  to  God  on  account  of 
the  sins  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  The  ceremonial 
was  very  elaborate  and  the  occasion  was  observed 
with  great  solemnity  by  the  whole  nation.  As 
described  in  the  Old  Testament  the  prescriptions 
for  this  Day  of  Atonement,  the  Good  Friday  of  the 
Levitical  system  as  it  has  been  called,  probably 
owe  a  good  deal  to  Babylonian  influences.  It 


THE   ATONEMENT  1 29 

should  be  remembered  that  the  outstanding  event 
in  later  Jewish  history  was  the  carrying  away  of  the 
flower  of  the  nation  by  Nebuchadnezzar  into  Babylon, 
where  they  remained  for  more  than  two  generations. 
It  is  quite  likely  that,  in  spite  of  their  exclusiveness 
and  their  hatred  of  their  conquerors,  the  Jews  may 
have  borrowed  some  of  their  religious  ritual  from  the 
Babylonians,  but,  whether  they  did  or  not,  the  ideas 
underlying  their  respective  modes  of  worship  were 
much  the  same.  Primitive  religious  sacrifice  among 
Semitic  peoples  appears  to  have  been  mainly  of  a 
joyous  character;  worship  and  sacrifice  went  hand  in 
hand.  The  worshippers  were  accustomed  to  offer 
to  their  gods  sacrifices  of  everything  which  the  vota- 
ries themselves  valued,  —  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  their 
material  possessions,  their  flocks  and  herds,  the 
prisoners  they  had  taken  in  war,  and  occasionally 
even  the  children  of  their  own  body.  It  was  only  on 
great  and  solemn  occasions,  such  as  the  necessity 
for  staying  a  pestilence,  or  averting  defeat  in  war, 
that  the  offering  of  the  more  terrible  kinds  of  sacrifice 
was  made.  It  would  be  instructive,  therefore,  for  us 
to  inquire  what  were  the  underlying  ideas  assumed 
in  Semitic  religious  sacrifice. 

Underlying  ideas  in  Semitic  sacrifice,  i.  The 
solidarity  of  man  with  God.  —  In  the  first  place 
there  was  the  idea  of  community  of  life  between  the 
worshipper  and  his  god.  It  is  doubtful  how  far 
this  can  be  pressed,  but  it  is  clear  that  in  the  Semitic 
mind  there  was  always  a  conviction  that  the  deity 


130  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

of  the  clan  or  tribe  was  the  giver  as  well  as  the  sus- 
tainer  of  its  life.  This  did  not  apply  to  the  minor 
divinities,  the  demons  of  wood  and  stream,  but  to  the 
tribal  deities,  the  Chemosh  of  Moab,  the  Dagon  of  the 
Philistines,  the  Jehovah  of  Israel.  Probably  the 
Philistines  were  not  Semites,  but  no  doubt  ancient 
worship  in  general  took  for  granted  this  community 
of  life  between  any  particular  people  and  their  deity. 
In  the  offering  of  the  best  of  their  possessions  to 
the  god  the  worshippers  thought  they  were  rendering 
to  him  of  his  own.  As  he  was  at  once  the  giver  and 
the  guardian  of  life,  they  felt  bound  to  render  him  the 
best  of  the  fruits  of  life.  This  was  a  true  thought,  a 
principle  essential  to  all  true  spiritual  life,  and 
implied  in  all  spiritual  aspiration.  The  reader  will 
have  already  seen  that  it  is  fundamental  to  the  New 
Theology.  However  crude  and  even  repellent  some 
of  its  expressions  may  have  been  in  ancient  modes  of 
worship,  it  is  the  same  truth  all  ages  through  —  the 
truth  that  God  and  man  are  essentially  one. 

2.  The  solidarity  of  the  individual  with  the  com- 
munity. —  A  further  idea  underlying  primitive  sacri- 
fice was  that  of  the  solidarity  of  the  individual  with 
the  community  as  a  whole.  In  the  Chaldean  tribes 
out  of  which  Israel  arose  personality  as  we  know  it 
had  not  even  emerged.  Readers  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment will  not  need  to  be  reminded  that  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  Israel's  existence  as  a  people  the  whole 
nation  was  repeatedly  said  to  be  punished  for  the 
behaviour  of  individuals,  and  families  perished  for 


THE   ATONEMENT  131 

the  transgression  of  a  father,  as  in  the  case  of  Achan. 
No  particular  attention  was  ever  paid  to  the  individ- 
ual as  such.  A  man  had  no  life  of  his  own,  and  no 
value,  apart  from  the  life  of  the  community.  He 
belonged  to  it,  not  to  himself.  Hence,  when  any 
communal  act  of  worship  was  performed,  when  any 
tribal  sacrifice  was  made  to  the  deity,  the  organic 
unity  of  the  individual  with  the  whole  was  specially 
emphasised.  Physically  and  spiritually  the  unit  was 
held  to  belong  to  the  whole,  and  to  exist  for  the  sake 
of  the  whole.  Here  again  we  have  a  great  truth,  the 
foundation  truth  of  all  morality,  and  a  truth  which 
reaches  its  highest  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  The  deepen- 
ing of  individual  self -consciousness,  and  the  increased 
perception  of  individual  value,  have  neither  weakened 
nor  destroyed  it,  for  it  is  written  in  the  very  consti- 
tution of  the  universe.  Mankind  is  fundamentally 
one;  here  is  morality.  We  are  individually  fulfilled 
in  God;  here  is  religion.  These  are  the  cognate 
ideas  underlying  all  modes  of  sacrificial  worship, 
ancient  or  modem.  These  are  the  ideas  which  find 
elaborate  ceremonial  expression  in  the  Israelitish 
Day  of  Atonement  as  described  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  main  purpose  of  these  observances 
was  the  desire  to  assert  as  solemnly  and  emphatically 
as  possible  the  essential  oneness  of  the  community 
with  God,  and  of  every  individual  with  all  the  rest. 
Everything  which  tended  to  separate  between 
Israel  and  her  God  was  ceremonially  put  away  on 
this  great  occasion.  From  the  religious  point  of 


132  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

view  it  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  year.  The 
Babylonian  new  year  began  about  the  same  time. 
It  was  supposed  that  a  man's  good  or  evil  fortune 
was  appointed  on  new  year's  day  and  settled  past  all 
possibility  of  revision  on  the  tenth  day  after.  The 
intervening  nine  days  were  therefore  kept  as  a  sort 
of  Lenten  season;  the  tenth  day  was  the  grand 
occasion  for  the  making  sure  of  the  harmonious 
relations  of  the  community  with  the  deity.  It  will 
be  seen,  therefore,  that  psychologically  the  idea  of 
Atonement  takes  precedence  of  the  idea  of  sin. 
Most  westerners  are  accustomed  to  think  exactly 
the  reverse,  and  that  is  why  the  various  theories 
of  Atonement  which  have  appeared  and  disappeared 
in  the  course  of  Christian  history  have  so  generally 
obscured  the  truth.  The  root  principle  of  Atone- 
ment is  not  that  of  escaping  punishment  for  trans- 
gression, but  the  assertion  of  the  fundamental 
oneness  of  God  and  man.  This  may  or  may  not 
be  accompanied  by  feelings  of  guilt  and  contrition, 
but  it  is  the  very  marrow  of  religion.  Atonement 
implies  the  acting-together  of  God  and  man,  the 
subordination  of  the  individual  will  to  the  universal 
will,  the  fulfilment  of  the  unit  in  the  whole. 

Sense  of  sin  not  originally  essential  to  atone- 
ment. —  It  ought  to  be  recognised  that  in  Semitic 
modes  of  worship  the  idea  of  sin  did  not  originally 
hold  the  place  it  has  since  come  to  hold  in  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness.  The  Babylonian  and  the  early 
Israelite  were  greatly  afraid  of  offending  God,  but 


THE   ATONEMENT  133 

they  do  not  seem  to  have  thought  of  such  a  transgres- 
sion as  being  morally  culpable.  The  profound  sense 
of  sin  which  characterises  so  many  of  the  psalms 
and  prophetic  writings  of  the  Old  Testament  was  a 
comparatively  late  development.  The  primitive 
Semites  had  a  markedly  anthropomorphic  idea  of 
their  deities.  They  thought  of  any  divine  being  as 
more  or  less  like  an  ordinary  man  and  liable  to  take 
umbrage  at  little  things.  It  was  even  possible  to 
offend  him  without  knowing  it,  and  therefore  to  be 
left  without  protection  against  the  ills  of  life.  It  was 
to  make  sure  of  smoothing  away  all  possible  mis- 
understandings that  covering  sacrifices  were  offered 
from  time  to  time ;  but  the  offering  of  these  sacrifices 
did  not  necessarily  mean  that  the  worshipper  thought 
he  had  done  anything  to  be  ashamed  of  and  which 
required  to  be  put  right.  He  was  simply  treating  his 
god  as  he  would  have  treated  a  powerful  earthly 
patron  or  potentate,  that  is,  he  was  apologising  for 
anything  he  might  have  done  to  alienate  his  favour. 
This  notion  of  the  necessity  for  placating  God  is  to  be 
found  in  close  association  with  the  worthier  spiritual 
instincts  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  and  it  has 
not  even  yet  disappeared  from  our  thinking.  Un- 
biassed readers  of  the  Old  Testament  will  find  abun- 
dant justification  for  this  statement.  We  are  told 
repeatedly  therein  that  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was 
kindled  against  Israel  or  against  this  or  that  indi- 
vidual, and  that  the  whole  community  had  in  con- 
sequence to  humble  itself  before  Him  in  order  to 


134  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

avert  plague,  or  pestilence,  or  some  other  form  of 
general  calamity.  Not  only  was  Jehovah  thought 
of  as  a  kind  of  larger  man  who  was  at  once  protector 
and  tyrant  to  his  people,  he  was  but  the  God  of 
Israel  in  contradistinction  to  the  gods  of  other  na- 
tions, one  God  out  of  many.  It  was  only  gradually, 
and  after  the  lapse  of  ages,  that  Israelites  came  to 
think  of  their  God  as  the  God  of  the  whole  earth  and 
a  being  who  must  be  worshipped  in  righteousness. 
Irsael  was  fortunate  in  possessing  what  other  nations 
had  not  in  the  same  degree,  a  succession  of  specially 
inspired  men,  teachers  of  moral  and  spiritual  truth 
called  prophets.  The  best  of  these  —  for  no  doubt 
the  generality  of  them  spoke  only  the  language  of 
their  time  —  earnestly  protested  against  material 
ideas  of  sacrifice  and  inadequate  notions  about  God. 
They  declared  that  God  and  the  moral  ideal  were  one 
and  that  the  best  way  to  serve  the  former  was  to  be 
true  to  the  latter.  True  sacrifice,  they  maintained, 
was  of  a  spiritual  kind  and  ought  never  to  be  thought 
about  in  any  other  sense.  Thus  in  the  fifty-first 
psalm  the  writer,  one  of  the  prophetic  school,  thus 
contrasts  mere  ceremonialism  with  spiritual  worship : 

Thou  desirest  not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it;  Thou 
delightest  not  in  burnt  offering.  The  sacrifices  of  God 
are  a  broken  spirit.  A  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O 
God,  Thou  wilt  not  despise." 

Or  take  the  prophet  Micah,  chapter  vi.,  verse  6. 
Here  is  a  reference  to  human  sacrifice,  to  which  the 


THE   ATONEMENT  135 

Israelites  were  prone  from  time  to  time,  following 
the  example  of  their  neighbours : 

Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and  bow  my- 
self before  the  Most  High  God  ?  shall  I  come  before  Him 
with  burnt  offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old  ?  Will  the 
Lord  be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thou- 
sands of  rivers  of  oil  ?  shall  I  give  my  firstborn  for  my 
transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul  ? 

And  the  answer  of  the  prophet  is: 

He  hath  showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good;  and 
what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ? 

Here  we  have  a  declaration  in  unmistakable  terms 
that  the  moral  ideal  and  the  religious  ideal  are  one, 
and  that  to  worship  God  properly  the  worshipper 
must  treat  his  fellow-men  properly.  We  now  get 
the  idea  that  sin  against  God  is  not  something  into 
which  a  man  may  fall  without  knowing  it,  but  the 
living  of  a  selfish  life. 

Atonement  never  an  equivalent  for  penalty.  — 
We  ought  to  recognise  too  that  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Day  of  Atonement  were  never  held  to  secure  a  com- 
plete amnesty  for  all  kinds  of  sin.  If  a  man  com- 
mitted theft  or  murder,  he  had  to  bear  the  appro- 
priate penalty  of  his  misdemeanour  because  he  had 
been  guilty  of  an  action  directed  against  the  well- 
being  of  the  community  and  the  community  had  to 
take  measures  to  protect  itself;  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment availed  nothing  hi  such  a  case.  Here  is  where 


136  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

many  who  see  in  the  Old  Testament  sacrificial 
system  a  type  and  anticipation  of  the  one  perfect 
sacrifice  of  Jesus  frequently  go  wide  of  the  facts. 
The  Day  of  Atonement  was  a  ceremonial  and  sym- 
bolical assertion  of  the  willingness  of  the  individual 
and  the  nation  to  fulfil  their  true  destiny  by  being 
at  one  with  God.  If  some  particular  man  had  been 
so  living  as  to  cut  himself  off  from  the  communal 
well-being,  he  had  to  suffer. 

The  significance  of  the  blood.  — Many  people  seem 
to  think  that  some  actual  saving  efficacy  was  sup- 
posed to  attach  to  the  shedding  of  the  blood  of  the 
victims  offered  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  but  that  never 
was  so.  No  doubt  in  the  ignorant  popular  mind 
material  sacrifices  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  pos- 
sessing some  virtue  in  themselves,  but  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  nation  never  regarded  them  in  this  way. 
In  the  offering  of  a  victim  the  worshipper  symboli- 
cally offered  himself.  The  Semites  thought  that  the 
life  of  any  organism  was  in  the  blood.  Thus  in 
Numbers  we  read,  "The  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the 
blood,  and  I  have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar 
to  make  atonement  for  your  souls,  for  it  is  the  blood 
that  maketh  atonement  by  reason  of  the  soul  (or 
life)."  When,  therefore,  a  man  offered  the  blood  of 
a  victim  upon  the  altar,  he  was  symbolically  declaring 
his  recognition  of  the  truth  that  the  individual  life 
belongs  to  the  whole  and  must  give  or  pour  itself 
out  to  the  common  life  and  to  God  the  source  of  all. 
Only  in  this  way  could  individuality  realise  itself; 


THE   ATONEMENT  137 

apart  from  the  whole  it  was  meaningless  and  value- 
less. 

The  truth  beneath  all  sacrifice,  however  barbarous. 
— This  helps  us  to  see  how,  even  underneath  the  most 
horrible  and  repellent  modes  of  ancient  religious 
sacrifice,  there  was  something  essentially  great  and 
noble.  When  a  heathen  mother  passed  her  child 
through  the  fire  to  Moloch,  did  the  sacrifice  cost  her 
nothing?  To  be  sure  it  did.  It  must  have  been 
much  harder  to  give  her  baby  than  to  give  herself. 
She  did  it  because  she  had  been  taught  to  believe 
that  to  give  one's  best  and  dearest  possession  for 
the  life  of  the  whole  was  an  action  acceptable  to 
God  and  worthy  of  our  relationship  to  Him.  We 
have  deepened  and  purified  that  ideal,  but  we  have 
not  lost  it ;  we  never  can.  As  time  went  on  men  came 
to  see  that  there  was  a  higher  way  of  giving  the  self 
to  the  whole  than  that  of  immolating  a  physical  life, 
and  a  better  way  of  symbolising  that  offering  than  by 
shedding  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats;  but  the 
essential  truth  beneath  all  the  intricate  sacrificial 
systems  of  ancient  Israel  and  her  neighbours  is  one 
that  can  never  perish. 

To  sum  up.  Atonement  is  the  assertion  of  the 
fundamental  unity  of  all  existence,  the  unity  of  the 
individual  with  the  race  and  the  race  with  God. 
The  individual  can  only  realise  that  unity  by  sac- 
rificing himself  to  it.  To  fulfil  the  self  we  must  give 
the  self  to  the  All.  This  is  the  truth  presumed  in  all 
ancient  ideas  of  Atonement.  The  idea  of  placating 


138  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

a  manlike  God  for  offences  committed  against  his 
dignity  has  been  a  concomitant  of  this  perception, 
even  a  hindrance  to  it,  but  it  has  never  wholly  ob- 
scured the  truth  itself.  That  truth  is  constant 
and  essential  to  all  religion  and  morality,  and  is  the 
coordinating  principle  to  all  between  them. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  ATONEMENT 

III.    The  Doctrine  in  Christian  History  and 
Experience 

Antiquity  of  the  essential  truth.  —  From  what  has 
now  been  said  it  will,  I  hope,  be  clear  that  the 
roots  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Atonement  lie  far 
back  in  history,  especially  Semitic  history  mediated 
through  the  Old  Testament,  and  that  its  fundamental 
truth  is  one  with  which  the  world  can  never  dis- 
pense; it  is  both  simple  and  sublime.  Nothing 
worth  doing  in  human  history  has  ever  been  done 
apart  from  it  or  ever  will  be.  It  is  no  paradox  to 
say  that  even  a  morally  earnest  agnostic  believes 
in  the  Atonement;  at  any  rate  he  believes  in  the  all- 
essential  truth  without  which  there  would  never  have 
been  such  a  thing  as  a  doctrine  of  Atonement. 

No  consistent  theory  hi  the  New  Testament.  — 
But  now  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  this  truth 
as  it  has  passed  over  into  Christianity.  I  do  not 
propose  to  give  an  accurate  and  exhaustive  analysis 
of  the  principal  things  that  have  been  said  about  it, 
from  the  writings  of  St.  Paul  downwards;  that  would 
only  be  wearisome  to  my  readers  and  lead  to  no 
139 


140  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

particular  result.  But  if  I  have  succeeded  in  making 
clear  the  psychological  necessity  for  the  existence  of 
the  idea  of  Atonement,  it  will  serve  us  as  a  guiding 
principle  when  we  come  to  consider  it  in  relation  to 
the  sacrifice  of  Jesus.  Many  exegetes  have  under- 
taken to  show  that  the  various  New  Testament 
writers  held  one  and  the  same  theory  of  the  relation 
of  the  death  of  Jesus  to  the  forgiveness  of  sins; 
never  was  a  task  more  hopeless.  The  Pauline, 
Petrine,  and  Johannine  theories,  and  that  of  the 
writer  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  are  not  mutually 
consistent,  and  Paul  is  not  always  consistent  with 
himself.  The  principal  thing  they  have  in  common 
is  their  belief  that  the  death  of  Jesus  was  of  vital 
efficacy  in  the  doing  away  of  sin.  The  symbolism 
in  which  they  set  forth  this  truth  is  borrowed  mainly 
from  the  Old  Testament,  and  we  have  already  seen 
what  underlay  that  symbolism  even  in  its  earliest 
use.  Old  Testament  language  about  sacrifice  sup- 
plies the  mental  dialect  of  the  New,  and  now  that 
we  have  the  key  to  it  we  need  neither  be  puzzled 
nor  misled  by  it.  Beneath  all  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  have  to  say  about  the  death  of  Jesus 
there  is  the  same  grand  old  spiritual  truth  of  Atone- 
ment which  makes  religion  possible.  Before  we 
resume  our  examination  of  the  connection  between 
the  death  of  Jesus  and  the  doing  away  of  sin,  let  us 
look  for  a  moment  at  what  post-apostolic  thought  has 
had  to  say  about  it. 
The  Fathers.  —  From  the  beginning  of  the  second 


THE   ATONEMENT  141 

century  onwards  the  Fathers  of  the  church  and  their 
theological  successors  attempted  a  variety  of  explana- 
tions of  the  way  in  which  the  death  of  Jesus  achieved 
potentially  the  redemption  of  mankind.  It  is  not 
easy  to  say  just  when  one  period  of  Christian  thought 
closes  and  another  begins;  but,  broadly  speaking, 
we  can  for  convenience  classify  them  into  the  period 
of  the  Fathers,  the  mediaeval  period,  the  Reformation 
and  afterwards  up  to  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
the  period  of  modem  thought.  The  Fathers  may 
be  divided  into  two  groups,  the  ante-Nicene  and  the 
post-Nicene  writers,  and  also  into  the  Greek  and 
Latin  Fathers.  But  as  I  am  not  writing  for  theo- 
logical students,  I  will  not  attempt  any  further 
analysis  of  the  various  patristic  schools.  Those 
who  wrote  previous  to  325  A.D.  belong  to  the  ante- 
Nicene  group;  those  who  wrote  after  that  date,  to  the 
post-Nicene  group.  The  ante-Nicene  writers,  gen- 
erally speaking,  avoid  giving  any  theory  of  the  atone- 
ment at  all;  but  two  of  their  greatest  thinkers, 
Origen  and  Irenaeus,  held  that  mankind  had  fallen 
under  the  dominion  of  Satan,  and  that  Jesus  by 
His  sufferings  paid  a  ransom  to  Satan  in  order  that 
we  might  be  freed  from  his  power.  Post-Nicene 
Fathers  for  the  most  part  adopted  this  view  without 
attempting  to  justify  it.  Amongst  their  statements 
we  find  the  ideas  that  the  Atonement  was  a  ransom 
to  Satan  and  also  a  sacrifice  to  God,  but  they  offer 
no  explanation  of  the  necessity  of  either.  Later 
on  Augustine  anticipated  subsequent  Christian 


142  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

thought  by  maintaining  that  the  atoning  work  of 
Jesus  was  part  of  an  eternal  purpose. 

Anselm  and  after.  —  The  scholasticism  of  the 
Middle  Ages  finds  its  first  important  expression  in  the 
illustrious  Anselm,  an  acute  thinker  and  a  beautiful 
soul.  Anselm  rejected  the  idea  of  a  ransom  to 
Satan,  declaring  that  Satan  had  no  rights  over 
humanity;  in  place  of  this  notion  he  put  forward  the 
theory  that  Jesus  made  to  God  an  infinite  satis- 
faction for  an  infinite  debt.  According  to  this  theory 
the  majesty  of  God  had  suffered  indignity  because 
of  human  sin,  and  yet  man  was  unable  by  himself 
to  offer  an  adequate  satisfaction  for  the  offence. 
Hence  the  eternal  Son  of  God  became  man  in  order 
that  He  might  offer  the  only  satisfaction  that  could 
be  considered  adequate.  This  theory  did  not  go 
unchallenged.  Abelard,  for  example,  asked  the  very 
reasonable  question  how  the  guilt  of  mankind  could 
be  atoned  for  by  the  greater  guilt  of  those  who  put 
Jesus  to  death.  Abelard's  famous  opponent,  Ber- 
nard of  Clairvaux,  also  repudiated  Anselm's  main 
contention  and  fell  back  upon  the  theory  of  a  satis- 
faction to  Satan. 

Reformation  theories.  —  At  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation the  question  of  the  Atonement  formed  the 
subject  of  considerable  controversy,  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  Reformers  were  less  reasonable  than  the 
Catholics,  as  is  the  case  to  some  extent  even  to-day. 
The  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  of  Atonement  is 
much  nearer  to  the  truth  than  conventional  Protes- 


THE   ATONEMENT  143 

tant  statements  about  the  "finished  work"  and  so 
on.  One  considerable  section  of  sixteenth-century 
Protestantism  held  and  taught  the  doctrine  of  the 
total  depravity  of  human  nature,  and  insisted  on  the 
idea  that  Jesus  bore  the  actual  penal  sufferings  of 
sinners.  Calvinists  held  that  these  sufferings  had 
value  for  the  elect  only.  Against  these  views  So- 
cinianism  arose  as  a  protest,  but  tended  to  reduce 
the  Passion  of  Jesus  to  a  sort  of  drama  enacted  by 
God  in  the  presence  of  humanity  in  order  to  excite 
men's  contrition  and  win  their  love. 

The  modern  lack  of  a  theory. — Modem  evangelical 
thought  has  done  very  little  with  all  these  theories 
except  to  make  them  impossible ;  it  has  no  consistent 
and  reasonable  explanation  to  put  in  their  place. 
The  popular  kind  of  evangelical  phraseology  is  that 
which  continues  to  represent  Jesus  as  having  borne 
the  punishment  due  to  human  sin;  salvation  is 
spoken  of  as  though  it  meant  deliverance  from  the 
post-mortem  consequences  of  misdoing. 

More  about  sin.  —  In  all  these  theories  it  is  evident 
that  the  death  of  Jesus  is  closely  connected  with  the 
forgiveness  of  sin  and  that  the  forgiveness  of  sin  is 
the  vital  element  in  the  Atonement.  In  order  to 
understand  the  truth  about  this  let  us  return  to  what 
has  already  been  said  on  the  subject  of  sin  and  pursue 
it  a  little  farther.  I  have  already  pointed  out  that 
sin  is  selfishness  pure  and  simple,  and  that  that  defi- 
nition will  cover  all  its  manifestations.  There  is  no 
sin  that  is  not  selfishness,  there  in  no  selfishness  that 


144  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

is  not  sin.  All  possible  activities  of  the  soul  are 
between  selfishness  on  the  one  hand  and  love  on  the 
other.  If  people  would  only  accept  this  simple  ex- 
planation of  a  great  subject,  it  would  get  rid  of  most 
of  the  confusion  of  thought  that  exists  in  regard  to  it. 
The  life  of  love  is  the  life  lived  for  impersonal  ends; 
the  sinful  life  is  the  life  lived  for  self  alone.  The  life 
of  love  is  the  life  which  does  the  best  with  the  self 
for  the  sake  of  the  whole;  the  sinful  life  is  the  life 
which  is  lived  for  the  self  at  the  expense  of  the  whole. 
The  desire  for  gratification  at  some  one  else's  cost, 
or  at  the  cost  of  the  common  life,  is  the  root  principle 
of  sin.  Sin  against  God  is  simply  an  offence  against 
the  common  life ;  it  is  attempting  to  draw  away  from 
instead  of  ministering  to  the  common  good.  The 
sinful  man  thinks  it  will  pay  him  to  be  selfish;  his 
impulse  is  to  suppose  that  he  can  gain  more  happiness, 
can  drink  more  deeply  of  the  cup  of  life,  by  doing  it 
at  the  expense  of  other  people.  We  all  do  it  more 
or  less,  and  yet  the  world  might  have  learned  by 
this  time  that  selfishness  does  not  pay ;  the  thoroughly 
selfish  man  is  an  unhappy  man,  for  he  has  not  drawn 
upon  the  source  of  abiding  joy.  Like  love,  self- 
ishness is  a  guest  for  life,  but  whereas  love  obtains 
more  abundant  life  by  freely  giving  itself,  sin  loses 
hold  on  life  by  trying  to  grab  and  keep  it.  Every 
man  is  seeking  life  and  seeking  it  in  one  or  other 
of  these  opposite  ways;  he  is  either  fulfilling  the 
self  by  serving  the  whole,  or  he  is  trying  to  feed  the 
self  by  robbing  the  whole.  But  life  is  God,  and 


THE   ATONEMENT  145 

there  is  no  life  which  is  not  God.  God  is  the  life 
all-abundant,  the  life  infinite  and  eternal,  the  life 
that  never  grows  old,  the  life  that  is  joy.  Every 
man,  consciously  or  subconsciously,  wants  that  life; 
he  is  wanting  it  all  the  time.  Why  does  the  man  of 
business  spend  so  many  hours  in  his  office  in  the 
effort  to  make  money?  It  is  because  money  repre- 
sents power,  power  that  can  purchase  "  more  life 
and  fuller."  Probably  he  does  not  want  it  all  for 
himself ;  he  works  for  love  of  his  family  or  love  of 
the  community,  and  his  desire  to  serve  them  makes 
his  work  gladder,  so  that  already  he  has  more  abun- 
dant life  than  he  would  otherwise  possess.  Analyse 
human  action,  no  matter  what,  and  it  will  be  seen 
to  point  in  one  or  other  of  these  two  directions,  self- 
ward  or  all-ward.  If  the  former,  it  will  shrivel  the 
soul,  it  makes  for  death ;  if  the  latter,  it  will  expand 
the  soul,  it  makes  for  life.  This  is  a  spiritual  law 
which  knows  no  exception;  hi  the  long  run  the  loving 
deed  brings  larger  life  and  joy,  the  selfish  deed 
brings  pain  and  darkness.  "  Be  not  deceived,  God 
is  not  mocked;  whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall 
he  also  reap.  He  that  soweth  to  the  flesh  shall  of 
the  flesh  reap  corruption,  but  he  that  soweth  to  the 
spirit  shall  of  the  spirit  reap  eternal  life." 

It  is  evident  from  the  foregoing  that  even  the  sin- 
ful life  is  a  quest  for  God,  although  it  does  not  know 
itself  to  be  such,  for  hi  seeking  life  saint  and  sinner 
alike  are  seeking  God,  the  all-embracing  life.  And 
the  sinner  must  learn  that  to  seek  life  selfishly  is  to 


146  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

lose  it;  to  seek  it  unselfishly  is  both  to  gain  and  to 
give  it.  The  good  man  and  the  bad  man  are  seek- 
ing the  same  thing  in  opposite  ways. 

During  the  recent  New  Theology  controversy 
the  editor  of  the  British  Weekly,  in  the  course  of  an 
attack  upon  my  teaching,  printed  a  number  of  ex- 
tracts from  my  sermons  in  order  to  convince  his 
readers  that  that  teaching  was  objectionable  and 
false.  In  every  case  the  extract  was  carefully  re- 
moved from  its  context  and  therefore  conveyed 
quite  a  misleading  impression  to  the  mind  of  the 
reader.  One  of  these  extracts  was  from  a  sermon 
on  "More  Abundant  Life,"  preached  in  the  City 
Temple  on  Sunday  morning,  March  18,  1906.  As 
this  extract  has  been  widely  circulated,  perhaps  I 
may  be  pardoned  for  giving  it  here  along  with  the 
context.  All  that  the  editor  chose  to  print  was  a 
part  of  the  paragraph  in  which  sin  was  described  as 
a  quest  for  God,  and  yet  he  must  have  known  per- 
fectly well  that  to  take  that  paragraph  out  of  its 
setting  was  to  do  an  injustice  both  to  the  preacher 
and  to  the  subject. 

Observe  the  sharp  antithesis  between  the  "  thief  or 
the  robber"  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  "Good  Shepherd" 
on  the  other.  These  two  stand  for  two  opposing  ten- 
dencies that  have  run  through  all  nature  and  all  human 
life.  All  nature  through,  all  history  through,  two  con- 
flicting tendencies  have  been  discernible.  These  are 
ever  at  war,  and  they  ever  will  be  until  the  whole  world 
has  been  subdued  to  Christ,  and  is  filled  with  the  fulness 


THE   ATONEMENT  147 

of  the  life  of  God.  These  two  tendencies  we  may  de- 
scribe as  the  deathward  and  the  lifeward  respectively. 
The  words  are  not  very  satisfactory  because  the  death- 
ward  tendency  masquerades  as  the  lifeward  tendency, 
and  the  lifeward  tendency,  before  fruition,  looks  like 
the  deathward  one.  In  nature,  as  Romans  viii.  tells 
us,  "We  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now."  Nature  is  cruel, 
"red  in  tooth  and  claw."  The  deathward  tendency  is 
what  I  may  call  the  selfward  tendency  in  the  upward 
struggle  of  all  organic  forms,  that  is,  one  organism 
only  exists  at  the  expense  of  other  organisms.  Yet  at 
a  certain  stage  in  evolution  this  principle  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  at  the  expense  of  the  rest  gives  way  to  a 
counter  principle,  that  of  the  fitting  of  as  many  as  pos- 
sible to  survive.  The  thief  tendency  gives  way  to  the 
shepherd  tendency,  self-love  to  mother-love,  the  struggle 
to  survive  to  the  struggle  for  the  life  of  others.  I  do  not 
pause  at  the  moment  to  account  for  these  two  antithetic 
tendencies,  there  they  are;  all  through  the  history  of 
this  sad  old  world  of  ours  these  two  tendencies  have 
been  in  sharp  conflict.  Both  are  cosmic,  both  probably 
resolvable  in  that  higher  unity  which  is  too  mysterious 
for  us  to  penetrate,  but  to  our  minds  they  are  in  flagrant 
opposition  to  each  other.  The  thief  cometh  to  steal  and 
to  kill  and  to  destroy;  mother-love,  Christ-love,  that  it 
may  give  life,  and  that  more  abundantly. 

In  human  history  the  antithesis  is  even  more  plainly 
marked.  From  one  point  of  view,  history  is  little  else 
than  the  story  of  the  crimes  and  follies  of  mankind.  If 
it  were  entirely  that,  the  study  would  be  too  saddening 
to  enter  upon;  but  it  is  not  all  of  that  character,  and  yet 


148  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

it  is  sufficiently  so  to  cast  a  shadow  over  the  optimism 
of  any  man  who  investigates  human  evolution  as  told  in 
song  and  story.  The  principle  that  "they  should  take 
who  have  the  power,  and  they  should  keep  who  can  " 
has  ruled  in  human  concerns  from  the  dawn  of  history 
until  to-day.  It  is  strong  enough  in  our  midst  even  now. 
Our  industrial  system  is  founded  upon  it,  and  is  essen- 
tially unchristian.  Commercialism  is  saturated  with  it; 
all  men  suffer  from  it,  but  often  they  know  not  how  to 
get  free  from  it.  Ruskin  has  a  grimly  amusing  para- 
graph on  the  parallel  between  an  earlier  civilisation  and 
that  of  to-day,  and  the  identity  in  principle  of  the  self- 
ward  tendency  in  both.  In  mediaeval  times,  as  he  would 
say,  the  robber  baron  was  wont  to  possess  himself  of  a 
mountain  fortress,  whence  he  swooped  down  upon  hapless 
passers-by  to  rob  them  of  their  possessions  and  their 
lives.  To-day  the  successful  financial  magnate  does 
the  same  by  effecting  corners  in  corn  and  such  like. 
The  great  writer  adds,  with  characteristic  irony,  "I 
prefer  the  crag  baron  to  the  bag  baron."  Yet  with  all 
this  we  see  at  work  in  history  another  tendency  which 
we  can  recognise  as  plainly  as  the  former,  but  which 
fills  us  with  great  hope  for  the  future  of  humanity,  —  it 
is  that  which  is  summed  up  in  the  one  word  "Christ." 
That  word  stands  all  the  world  over  for  the  things  that 
make  for  more  abundant  life.  Just  as  in  the  text  the 
word  "thief"  stands  for  everything  that  makes  for  sepa- 
rateness,  selfhood,  cruelty,  so  the  word  "  Christ "  stands 
for  everything  that  makes  for  union,  mutual  helpfulness, 
brotherly  kindness.  The  thief  stands  for  the  tendency 
to  grasp  and  draw  inward,  and  the  Christ  stands  for  the 
tendency  to  give,  and  live  outward.  The  former  ten- 


THE   ATONEMENT  149 

dency  is  what  I  call  the  deathward  —  deathward  for  all 
else  but  itself;  and  the  Christ  is  the  lifeward,  life  for  all 
else  but  itself.  Yet  —  curious  inversion  of  earlier  ex- 
perience—  the  deathward  tendency  results  in  death  to 
itself  in  the  spiritual  region,  and  the  lifeward  tendency 
results  in  life  to  him  who  gives  life.  "I  have  power  to 
lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again."  I  want 
you  to  realise  here,  then,  that  the  Christ  in  humanity 
is  the  life-giver  of  the  soul.  They  who  are  possessed  of 
the  Christ  spirit  are  they  who  have  and  can  give  the  more 
abundant  life. 

We  have  briefly  examined  the  two  tendencies  of  which 
I  have  spoken;  have  you  realised  that  in  the  things  of 
the  spirit  the  deathward  tendency  is  what  we  call  sin? 
Sin  is  selfishness ;  it  is  the  attempt  to  misuse  the  energies 
of  God;  it  is  the  expansion  of  individuality  at  the 
expense  of  the  race.  I  do  not  know  that  you  can  arrive 
at  a  much  more  thorough  explanation  of  the  nature 
of  sin  than  that.  Men  blunderingly  attempt  to  classify 
virtues,  and  think  of  sin  as  simply  the  failure  to  attain 
them.  It  is  not  that,  it  is  something  deeper;  sin  is  the 
attempt  to  minister  to  self  at  the  expense  of  that  which 
is  outside  self.  It  lives  by  death  to  others,  or  seeks  to 
do  so. 

When  I  was  away  a  few  weeks  ago  I  paid  a  visit  to 
Monte  Carlo  to  see  what  it  was  like,  and  went  into  the 
famous  gambling  saloon,  and  stood  for  a  while  looking 
at  the  faces  of  the  players.  I  could  not  see  anything 
very  different  from  what  I  see  now ;  the  people  who  were 
engaged  in  that  all-engrossing  pursuit  might  have  been 
in  church,  they  were  so  quiet,  so  orderly,  and  so  appar- 
ently passionless.  Yet  I  felt  —  it  may  have  been  a 


150  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

preacher's  prejudice  —  that  the  moral  atmosphere  of 
that  place  was  one  in  which  I  did  not  want  to  remain ; 
there  was  something  bad  there,  and  I  think  I  could 
discern  what  it  was.  The  gambler  is  essentially  a  man 
who  is  trying  to  get  something  for  nothing ;  he  is  drawing 
to  himself  that  which  he  supposes  will  give  him  more 
satisfying  and  abundant  life.  Let  who  will  suffer;  it  is 
not  his  concern.  What  is  lifeward  for  him  may  be 
death  ward  for  them ;  he  is  willing  that  it  should  be  so  — 
that  is  the  sin.  Sin  is  always  a  mistake,  —  a  soul's 
mistake;  it  is  the  carrying  up  into  the  spiritual  region 
of  that  stern  and  terrible  law  of  the  physical  world,  the 
survival  of  an  organism  at  the  expense  of  its  fellow. 
That  law  is  reversed  in  the  spiritual  world ;  it  is  replaced 
by  something  else.  If  a  soul  is  to  gain  more  abundant 
life,  it  must  rise  above  the  desire  to  grasp  and  hold.  The 
gambler  is  selling  that  beautiful  thing  which  came  fresh 
from  the  hand  of  God,  and  is  at  once  God's  life  and  his ; 
he  is  destroying  the  present  possibility  of  attaining  to 
that  higher  life  which  is  the  destiny  of  the  soul.  The 
Christ  in  him  can  find  no  expression.  And  yet,  my 
friends,  realise  this,  however  startling  it  may  seem,  sin 
itself  is  a  quest  for  God  —  a  blundering  quest,  but  a 
quest  for  all  that.  The  man  who  got  dead  drunk  last 
night  did  so  because  of  the  impulse  within  him  to  break 
through  the  barriers  of  his  limitations,  to  express  himself, 
and  to  realise  more  abundant  life.  His  self-indulgence 
just  came  to  that ;  he  wanted  if  only  for  a  brief  hour  to 
live  the  larger  life,  to  expand  the  soul,  to  enter  untrodden 
regions,  and  gather  to  himself  new  experience.  That 
drunken  debauch  was  a  quest  for  life,  a  quest  for  God. 
Men  in  their  sinful  follies  to-day,  and  their  blank  atheism, 


THE   ATONEMENT  151 

and  their  foul  blasphemies,  their  trampling  upon  things 
that  are  beautiful  and  good,  are  engaged  in  this  dim, 
blundering  quest  for  God,  whom  to  know  is  life  eter- 
nal. The  roue  you  saw  in  Piccadilly  last  night,  who  went 
out  to  corrupt  innocence  and  to  wallow  in  filthiness  of 
the  flesh,  was  engaged  in  his  blundering  quest  for  God. 
He  is  looking  for  Him  along  the  line  of  the  wrong  ten- 
dency; he  has  been  gathering  to  himself  what  he  took 
to  be  more  abundant  life,  "but  sin,  when  it  hath  con- 
ceived bringeth  forth  death"  —  death  to  the  sinner  as 
well  as  to  his  victim,  death  of  what  is  deepest  and  tru- 
est in  the  soul.  Yet  —  I  repeat  it  —  all  men  are  seek- 
ing life,  life  more  abundant,  even  in  their  selfishness  and 
wrong-doing,  seeking  life  by  the  deathward  road. 

"  Whatever  crazy  sorrow  saith, 
No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath 
Has  ever  truly  longed  for  death. 
'Tis  life,  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
O  life,  not  death,  for  which  we  pant, 
More  life  and  fuller  than  I  want." 

On  the  following  Sunday  I  preached  a  sermon 
entitled  the  "  Nature  of  Sin,"  in  which  the  same  point 
was  reemphasised  with  even  greater  distinctness, 
as  the  following  extract  will  show :  — 

I  think  I  startled  some  of  you  last  Sunday  morning 
when  I  happened  to  remark  that  sin  was,  after  all,  a 
quest  for  God  —  a  mistaken  quest,  but  none  the  less 
a  quest  for  God,  for  all  that.  I  want  to  explain  to  you 
to-night  somewhat  more  in  detail  what  I  mean  by  this, 
because  the  more  clearly  we  can  see  the  truth  the  more 
clearly  we  can  perceive  sin  to  be  a  soul's  blunder.  There 


152  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

are  two  tendencies  discernible  throughout  nature  and  in 
human  history.  These  two  tendencies  are  essentially 
opposed,  are  ever  in  conflict,  and  ever  will  be  until  the 
whole  world  is  subdued  to  Christ,  and  God  is  all  in  all. 
I  called  them  last  Sunday  morning  from  the  pulpit  the 
deathward  and  the  lifeward  respectively.  The  terms  are 
not  very  satisfactory,  because  the  deathward  tendency 
usually  masquerades  as  the  lifeward,  and  the  lifeward 
often  looks  like  the  deathward.  That  is  why  sin  is  ever 
possible.  A  man  thinks  to  get  something  by  it,  and 
though  he  finds  out  his  mistake  afterward,  yet  he  sup- 
poses it  to  be  for  him  the  lifeward  road.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  utterly  unselfish  deed  often  looks  as  though  it 
were  a  deed  that  would  bring  destruction  upon  the  doer. 
Not  so.  Jesus  Christ  saw  right  to  the  heart  of  things 
when  He  said,  "He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and 
he  that  loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  the  same  shall  find  it." 
If  you  substitute  for  the  words  "for  My  sake,"  "for 
truth's  sake,"  or  "for  life's  sake,"  you  will  get  just  the 
same  meaning,  —  "he  that  keeps  back  his  life  shall 
lose  it,  and  he  that  gives  forth  his  life  shall  find  it." 

Here,  then,  are  two  tendencies  sharply  contrasted. 
Now  observe  their  operation  in  nature  and  in  human 
experience.  You  are  all  aware  of,  and  frequently  have 
been  saddened,  no  doubt,  by  what  you  regard  as  the 
cruelty  of  nature.  There  is  a  tragedy  under  every  rose 
leaf,  there  is  unceasing  conflict  to  the  death  going  on  in 
every  hedgerow.  Nature  is  indeed  cruel.  I  have  often 
watched,  during  this  winter  which  is  now  drawing  to 
a  close,  the  little  birds  feeding  outside  the  window  of  my 
breakfast  room  in  the  morning.  Like  many  of  you, 
we  put  out  a  few  crumbs  for  these  feathered  friends  who 


THE   ATONEMENT  153 

share  the  same  garden  with  ourselves,  and  I  have  always 
noticed  that  there  is  a  battle  royal  fought  round  those 
crumbs.  There  is  enough  for  everyone,  and  yet  the 
instinct  of  these  little  creatures  is  to  try  and  grab  and  keep 
all,  each  one  for  itself.  The  instinct  of  the  lower  creation 
appears  to  be  that  a  form  can  only  preserve  itself,  and  only 
expand  and  express  itself,  at  the  expense  of  other  forms. 
It  is  a  stern  and  terrible  law,  as  you  well  know.  Forms, 
by  a  slow,  upward  progress  hi  the  unfolding  of  the  purpose 
to  which  nature  exists,  have  become  what  they  are  at  the 
expense  of  earlier  and  weaker  forms.  There  is  a  ten- 
dency to  grasp  and  hold,  a  tendency  to  kill  and  to  de- 
stroy, and  this,  to  some  minds,  appears  to  be  the  strong- 
est tendency  in  nature  or  in  man.  I  question  it,  —  in 
fact,  I  deny  it,  —  and  I  want  that  you  and  I  should  arrive 
at  the  same  conclusion  respecting  it.  For  there  is  an- 
other tendency  observable  working  from  the  very  earli- 
est throughout  the  processes  of  nature,  too.  It  is  that 
which  Henry  Drummond  describes  as  the  struggle  for 
the  life  of  others.  If  you  like,  we  will  call  it  mother- 
love.  I  saw  it  illustrated  only  yesterday.  A  mother 
sheep,  standing  in  her  place  amongst  the  flock,  was  sur- 
prised with  the  rest  at  the  incursion  of  a  mongrel  dog. 
The  flock  fled  instantly,  but  the  ordinarily  timid  mother 
stood  her  ground.  The  reason  was  not  far  to  seek. 
There  was  a  little  lamb  cowering  behind  her,  and  she, 
overcoming  her  natural  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
turned  her  face  to  the  dog  to  draw  his  attention,  if  possible, 
to  herself  and  deflect  it  from  her  young  one.  Now,  that 
instinct  represents  the  tendency  of  which  I  speak,  the 
antithetic  tendency  to  the  other  already  described.  It 
is  the  stronger  of  the  two.  It  indicates  the  goal  toward 


154  THE   NEW   THEOLOGY 

which  nature  herself  is  moving.  "  The  whole  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now," 
but  mother-love  is  a  prophecy  of  a  higher  yet  to  be. 
It  is  the  forth-going  instinct,  the  allward,  lifeward 
tendency. 

Now  turn  to  humanity.  I  think  you  will  agree  with 
me  that  right  through  human  history  the  same  two 
tendencies  are  observable.  The  farther  back  we  go, 
the  stronger  seems  the  selfward  tendency.  The  natural 
state  of  uncivilised  man  is  a  state  of  war.  Man  in  primi- 
tive communities  only  exists  and  flourishes  by  destroy- 
ing other  communities.  A  most  curious  thing  it  is,  too, 
that  apparently  our  domestic  and  civic  virtues  have  grown 
out  of  this  state  of  war.  A  man  used  to  carry  his  wife 
off  by  main  force.  She  become  his  property.  He  exerted 
his  brute  force,  he  magnified  his  own  personality,  as  it 
were,  in  crushing  other  personalities.  His  children 
were  in  his  hands  for  life  and  death.  If  he  afterwards 
learned  to  love  them,  it  was  in  contradistinction  to  the 
children  that  were  not  his.  That  which  was  his,  so  to 
speak,  gratified  his  egotism;  and,  although  a  more 
beautiful  relationship  grew  out  of  it,  such  was  the  un- 
promising beginning.  To-day  when  you  hear  a  man 
speaking  loudly  about  "  my  country,"  or  "  my  family," 
or  "  my  society,"  as  the  case  may  be,  you  may  be  perfectly 
sure  that  he  is  projecting  himself  into  his  patriotism,  or 
into  his  loyalty  to  family  or  society;  and  indeed  this  was 
the  lowly  beginning  of  what  has  come  to  be  an  excellent 
virtue.  We  have  had  to  learn  benevolence  by  concen- 
trating unselfish  attention  upon  the  few  rather  than  the 
many.  The  farther  back  you  go  in  history,  the  sterner 
does  the  operation  of  that  law  appear,  and  the  less  prom- 


THE  ATONEMENT  155 

ising  the  future  of  mankind.  If  people  tell  me  the  world 
is  not  getting  better,  I  suggest  that  it  might  be  worth 
their  while  to  read  a  chapter  of  mediaeval  or  primitive 
history.  In  the  "  Odyssey,"  for  instance,  Homer  sketches 
for  us  the  career  of  a  strong  and  remarkable  man.  His 
hero,  supposed  to  be  a  paragon  of  virtue,  is  capable  of 
things  you  would  call  scoundrelism  to-day.  He  and  his 
band  of  storm-tossed  companions  land  upon  an  island 
of  the  Grecian  Archipelago  and  find  a  city  there.  They 
promptly  sack  it  and  kill  all  the  inhabitants  —  men, 
women,  and  children.  It  seemed  to  be  the  proper  thing 
to  do,  and  found  its  way  into  verse,  and  they  boasted 
about  such  heroic  exploits.  It  was  brutal  murder,  and 
the  men  who  were  capable  of  it  were  nothing  more  or 
less  than  pirates.  Yet  that  stern,  terrible  tendency  thus 
illustrated  is  just  one  with  that  inscrutable  law  under 
which  nature  herself  has  come  to  be  what  she  is.  It  is 
what  I  call  the  selfward  tendency,  the  desire  to  grasp 
and  keep  at  the  expense  of  other  individualities  other 
societies  than  our  own. 

But  in  history,  and  from  those  very  earliest  times 
down  to  our  own,  another  tendency  has  shown  itself 
at  work,  a  counter  tendency.  The  two  have  been  so 
intertwined  frequently  —  as  I  have  indicated  in  showing 
where  patriotism  comes  from  —  that  it  has  been  diffi- 
cult to  dissociate  them;  but  they  are  quite  distinct. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  magnificent  devotion  of  Arnold 
von  Winkelried  on  the  field  of  Sempach.  Switzerland 
has  not  existed  as  a  political  unit  for  many  centuries,  but 
during  that  time  her  roll  of  heroes  has  been  large.  In 
the  formative  hour  of  Swiss  independence,  when  that 
tiny  folk  were  struggling  for  their  liberty  against  the 


156  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

overweening  power  of  Austria,  it  must  have  seemed  a 
hopeless  undertaking  —  this  group  of  mountaineers 
against  the  chivalry  of  an  empire.  The  great  battle  of 
Sempach  was  fought.  The  Swiss,  armed  with  nothing 
but  their  battle-axes,  hurled  themselves  in  vain  all  day 
long  against  the  serried  ranks  of  Austrian  mail-clad 
warriors,  armed  with  spears,  through  which  the  shepherd 
men  could  make  no  way.  They  fell  before  them,  but 
could  not  pass  through  them,  till  Winkelried  called  to 
his  countrymen,  "Provide  for  my  wife  and  children  and 
I  will  make  a  way,"  and,  rushing  unarmed  upon  the 
spearmen  of  Austria,  clasped  in  his  embrace  as  many 
of  them  as  he  could  and  bore  them  to  the  earth.  A 
dozen  spears  passed  through  his  body,  but  through  the 
gap  his  devotion  had  made,  his  countrymen  leaped  to 
victory.  That  one  act  made  possible,  humanly  speaking, 
the  Swiss  independence,  which  is  an  object-lesson  for 
us  to-day.  Such  acts  as  these  form  part  of  the  cherished 
lore  of  nations.  We  feel  they  are  the  light-centres  of 
the  world.  Something  tells  us  that  an  act  like  that,  the 
giving  of  a  life  for  the  sake  of  an  ideal,  a  cause,  a  country, 
was  a  great  thing.  It  represented  the  counter  tendency 
to  what  was  going  on  at  that  moment.  In  that  very 
battle  Austria  was  trying  to  grasp  and  hold,  Switzerland 
was  trying  to  get  free  and  live  her  own  life,  and  here  was 
a  man  who,  for  the  sake  of  his  country's  ideal,  gave  all 
that  he  had  —  his  life.  Will  you  tell  me  where  to  look 
for  the  focus  and  centre  of  that  ideal?  I  know  what 
your  answer  would  be.  It  was  at  Calvary.  The  one 
thing  which,  consciously  or  subconsciously,  men  have 
recognised  in  Jesus  that  has  given  Him  His  supreme 
attraction  for  the  world,  is  this  —  He  was  absolutely 


THE   ATONEMENT  157 

disinterested.  It  is  the  disinterestedness  of  Jesus,  His 
utter  nobleness,  His  power  of  projecting  Himself  into  the 
experience  of  others,  and  trying  to  lift  humanity  as  a 
whole  to  His  experience  of  God,  that  gave  Him  His 
power  with  mankind.  Jesus  not  only  proclaimed,  but 
lived,  the  counter  tendency  to  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 

Now,  when  we  have  brought  the  two  together,  you  see 
the  essential  distinction  between  working  for  self  and  its 
deathward  look,  and  working  for  all  with  its  lifeward 
gaze.  These  two  are  antithetic,  and  must  be  in  opposi- 
tion until  the  latter  absorbs  the  former,  and  God  is  all 
in  all,  and  love  reigneth  world  without  end. 

We  are  now  able  to  see  what  sin  is  more  plainly  than 
before.  Sin  is  the  tendency  to  grasp  and  draw  inward, 
and  everything  that  feeds  that  tendency  makes  for  death. 
Sin  is  the  expansion  of  the  individuality  at  the  expense 
of  the  race ;  sin  is  acting  on  the  belief  that  the  soul  can 
increase  at  another's  cost,  can  increase  by  destroying 
what  is  another's  good.  Apply  that  explanation  or 
definition  of  sin  to  what  you  know  about  life,  and  you 
will  soon  see  when  a  man  is  facing  the  deathward  road, 
and  how  differently  he  acts  when  he  is  choosing  the  life- 
ward  road.  There  are  men  in  this  congregation  who 
do  not  realise,  as  they  should,  that  lifewardness  is  God- 
wardness ;  but  so  it  is.  The  soul  and  the  source  of  all 
things  is  God,  and,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  all 
men  are  seeking  God  in  that  they  are  seeking  self-ex- 
pression, seeking  life.  The  man,  for  instance,  who  is 
trying  to  become  rich  is  a  man  who  is  seeking  to  express 
himself,  seeking  power,  seeking  life,  seeking  to  thrust 
through  the  barriers  that  surround  the  soul.  They  are 
all  doing  it;  the  veriest  materialist  among  you  is  seeking 


158  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

by  his  daily  activities  more  abundant  life.  The  young 
man  here  who  feels  a  burning  ambition  within  his  heart, 
a  desire  to  exploit  the  world  and  make  a  name  for  himself, 
to  occupy  a  high  station,  is  not  conscious  of  anything 
essentially  unworthy.  It  all  depends  on  what  he  does  with 
the  impulse.  What  you  are  seeking,  young  man,  is  more 
abundant  life,  and  that  is  equivalent  to  seeking  God. 
Life  is  God.  "Every  good  and  every  perfect  gift  is 
from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father  of  lights." 
And  when  the  tendency  goes  round  and  works  havoc 
and  ruin  in  the  world,  it  still  remains  a  quest  for  God, 
although  a  blundering  one.  It  is  a  misuse  of  divine 
energy.  The  man  who  got  drunk  last  night  and  gratified 
his  lower  nature  in  that  delirious  hour  would  be  surprised 
if  you  were  to  tell  him  when  you  see  the  result  that  he 
was  really  seeking  God,  but  so  it  is.  He  wants  life,  and 
thinks  he  can  get  it  this  way.  This  is  the  reason  why 
morbid  excitement  and  the  craving  for  amusement  have 
such  power  in  human  lives  to-day.  Your  roue  in  Picca- 
dilly who  went  out  to  destroy  innocence  was  seeking  life 
while  spreading  death.  It  seems  almost  blasphemy  to 
say  it,  but  he  was  seeking  God  and  thinking  —  O  wof ul 
blunder !  —  that  he  would  find  Him  by  destroying  some- 
thing that  God  has  made  beautiful  and  fair.  So  with 
all  acts  of  selfish  gratification  of  which  men  are  capable 
—  they  are  the  turning  of  the  current  of  divine  energy 
the  wrong  way,  and  seeking  self-gratification  at  the  ex- 
pense of  something  else  that  God  has  made.  It  is  a 
failure  to  see  that  we  only  obtain  life  by  giving  life. 
When  an  engine  goes  off  the  line  there  is  a  smash,  as  a 
rule,  and  the  greater  the  power  that  was  driving  the  en- 
gine, the  worse  is  the  wreck  when  it  leaves  the  line. 


THE   ATONEMENT  159 

The  lightning  directed  rightly  becomes  the  luminant  by 
which  we  look  on  each  other's  faces  to-night.  That 
same  power  might  have  brought  havoc  and  destruction 
if  it  had  not  been  harnessed  in  the  service  of  man.  And 
so  with  the  power  that  God  has  given  you ;  all  desire  for 
self-expression,  all  seeking  of  which  you  are  conscious 
for  larger  and  better  and  richer  life,  is  God-given;  but 
it  may  mean  ruin  and  destruction  unless  you  see  that  it 
is  yours,  not  that  you  may  draw  inward,  but  that  you 
may  give  outward,  yours  not  to  keep  and  hold,  but  yours 
wherewith  to  bless  mankind.  Sin  is  the  tendency  to 
keep  for  self  that  which  was  meant  for  the  world.  "The 
wages  of  sin  is  death,"  the  death  of  soul.  He  who  is 
guilty  of  sin  is  guilty  of  soul  murder.  "All  they  that 
hate  Me  love  death,"  and  he  that  spreads  pain  and  ruin 
over  other  lives  in  the  gratification  of  his  own  lower  in- 
stincts is  using  something  which  is  God-given  —  yea, 
which  is  essentially  God's  own  life  —  in  the  wrong 
way.  The  only  hope  for  him  is  to  realise  that  no  act  of 
sin  was  ever  yet  worth  while,  that  it  does  punish  itself, 
must  punish  itself,  for  it  shrivels  and  fetters  the  soul. 
No  eleventh-hour  repentance  will  ever  save  you,  and  no 
cowardly  cry  for  relief  will  ever  bring  God's  forgiveness 
into  your  soul,  until  you  have  realised  that  sin  and  selfish- 
ness are  one,  and  that  what  you  have  failed  to  give  forth 
of  love  and  service  represents  the  measure  of  your  soul 
poverty. 

Even  at  the  risk  of  prolixity  and  repetition  I  have 
thought  it  right  to  insert  these  lengthy  extracts  from 
sermons  which  have  been  animadverted  upon.  My 
readers  will  be  able  to  judge  of  the  fairness  of  the 


l6o  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

criticism  which,  by  abstracting  a  few  lines,  strove 
to  make  it  appear  that  my  teaching  denied  the  reality 
of  sin.  Here  are  the  actual  words  seen  in  their 
proper  setting.  If  one  were  on  the  lookout  for  a 
good  illustration  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin,  perhaps 
the  controversial  methods  of  the  editor  of  the  British 
Weekly  might  furnish  it.  This  kind  of  criticism  is 
on  a  par  with  that  of  the  gentleman  who  once  startled 
an  audience  by  declaring,  "  The  Bible  says  there  is 
no  God."  He  was  right,  of  course,  if  it  be  legitimate 
to  suppress  the  former  part  of  the  passage,  "The 
fool  hath  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God." 

It  is  time  we  had  done  with  unreal  talk  about  sin. 
Sin  is  the  murder  spirit  in  human  experience. 
"  Whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer.  If 
a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother,  he 
is  a  liar :  for  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not 
seen  ?  "  Strong  language,  but  I  suppose  the  man 
who  first  used  it  must  have  known  what  he  was  talk- 
ing about.  Pomposity  is  sin,  because  it  is  egoism; 
self-complacency  and  contemptuousness  are  sin 
for  the  same  reason.  Cupidity  is  sin  whether  in  a 
burglar  or  a  Doctor  of  Divinity.  A  bitter,  grasping, 
cruel,  unsympathetic  spirit  is  sin,  no  matter  who 
shows  it.  The  scribe  and  the  Pharisee  are  too  much 
with  us,  and  the  religious  ideal  needs  to  be  rescued 
from  their  blighting  grasp  to-day  as  much  as  ever  it 
did.  Of  all  forms  of  sin  an  arrogant,  malignant, 
self-satisfied  assumption  of  righteousness  is  the  worst 


THE  ATONEMENT  l6l 

and  the  hardest  to  eradicate,  as  Jesus  found  to  His 
cost.  The  terrible  damning  lie  which  is  stifling 
religion  to-day  is  the  lie  which  crucified  Jesus,  the 
lie  that  spiritual  pride  can  ever  interpret  God  to 
a  needy  world.  There  is  something  grimly  amusing 
in  the  suggestion  that  prosperous  people  should  pay 
for  sending  gospel  missions  to  the  poor.  If  sin  is 
selfishness,  the  poor  had  better  missionise  the  rich. 
Imagine  how  it  would  be  if  things  were  reversed  in 
this  way,  and  a  mission  band  of  earnest  slum  dwellers 
took  their  stand  in  Belgravia  and  began  a  house- 
to-house  visitation,  with  all  the  theological  terms 
carefully  eliminated  from  the  mission  leaflets  they 
thrust  under  the  doors  or  handed  to  the  powdered 
footmen.  Instead  of,  "  Flee  from  the  wrath  to  come," 
etc.,  they  might  have :  "  Don't  be  selfish  !  it  is  hurting 
you  and  your  neighbours  and  making  you  unhappy. 
Don't  pretend !  It  is  poor  business  in  the  end. 
Try  to  do  as  much  as  you  can  for  other  people  and 
you  will  know  what  God  is."  The  attempt  would 
be  startling  and  unwelcome,  but  it  would  be  far  less 
impudent  than  the  religious  exhortations  of  the  pros- 
perous to  the  poor  commonly  are.  For  the  truth  is 
that  if  sin  is  selfishness,  —  and  it  is  nothing  else, — 
the  degraded  habits  of  people  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
social  scale  are  no  more  sinful  than  the  ordinary 
behaviour  of  most  of  their  preceptors  at  the  other 
end.  Most  of  the  talk  about  sin  is  unreal;  that 
is  the  trouble;  so  verily  the  publicans  and  harlots 
go  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  before  us.  In  church 


162  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

a  man  will  profess  himself  to  be  a  miserable  sinner, 
but  if  we  were  to  address  him  in  the  same  way  out 
of  church  he  would  sue  us  for  libel  —  if  he  thought  we 
meant  it.  For  heaven's  sake  let  us  have  done  with 
the  sham  of  it  all  and  face  the  truth.  What  mankind 
is  suffering  from  is  selfishness.  Get  rid  of  that  and 
there  would  be  little  left  to  trouble  about. 

Atonement  and  sin.  —  It  should  now  be  plain 
why  the  doctrine  of  Atonement  has  been  so  closely 
associated  with  the  doing  away  of  sin ;  it  is  because, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  root  idea  of  Atonement  is  the 
assertion  of  the  fundamental  oneness  of  man  with 
man  and  all  with  God.  Sin  is  the  divisive  separating 
thing  in  our  relations  with  one  another,  and  with  God 
the  source  of  all,  so  the  assertion  of  our  oneness 
involves  getting  rid  of  sin.  If  we  ask  how  this  is  to 
be  done,  the  answer  is  simple  enough :  the  only  way 
to  get  rid  of  selfishness  is  by  the  ministry  of  love. 
What  is  it  that  is  slowly  winning  the  world  from  its 
selfishness  to-day  and  lifting  it  gradually  into  the 
higher,  purer  atmosphere  of  universal  love  ?  There 
is  but  one  thing  that  is  doing  it,  and  that  is  the  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice.  Wherever  you  see  that,  you  see  the 
true  Atonement  at  work.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
about  the  final  issue,  for  behind  the  spirit  of  love  is 
infinity,  whereas  the  spirit  of  selfishness  is  essentially 
finite.  On  the  field  of  human  history  the  death  of 
Jesus  is  the  focus  and  concentrated  essence  of  this 
age-long  atoning  process,  whereby  selfishness  is  being 
overcome  and  the  whole  race  lifted  up  to  its  home  in 


THE   ATONEMENT  163 

God.  Until  Jesus  came  no  self-offering  had  been  so 
consistent  and  so  complete.  No  selfish  desire  could 
find  lodgment  in  His  pure  soul.  He  showed  men  the 
ideal  life  by  living  it  Himself,  the  life  which  was  per- 
fectly at  one  with  God  and  man.  In  a  selfish  world 
that  life  was  sure  to  end  on  a  Calvary  of  some  kind, 
but  the  very  fact  that  it  did  so  demonstrated  the 
completeness  of  its  victory  over  all  considerations 
of  self-interest.  Selfishness  lost  the  battle  by  seeming 
to  gain  it.  God  was  behind  the  life  of  Jesus  just 
because  it  was  the  life  of  perfect  love,  the  life  which 
was  a  perfect  gift  to  the  whole,  therefore  that  life 
immediately  arose  in  power  in  other  lives  and  has 
gone  increasing  its  benevolent  sway  over  human 
hearts  ever  since.  This  is  the  Atonement  and  it  is 
rightly  associated  with  the  cross  of  Jesus  in  the  minds 
of  men,  for  the  cross  is  the  sum  and  centre  of  it  all. 
The  increasing  Atonement.  —  But  the  Atonement 
to  be  effective  has  to  be  repeated  on  the  altar  of  human 
hearts,  and  so  it  is,  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  most 
people  stop  to  think.  The  same  spirit  that  was  in 
Jesus  and  governed  His  whole  career  was  the  spirit 
of  the  true  humanity,  "  The  light  that  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  The  spirit  of 
Jesus  was  the  spirit  of  Christ,  the  ,ideal  or  divine 
manhood  as  it  exists  eternally  in  God.  But  that 
ideal  or  divine  manhood,  that  Christ  nature,  is  also 
potentially  present  in  every  human  being.  What 
needs  to  be  done  is  to  get  it  manifested  or  brought 
forth  into  conscious  activity.  The  immediate  effect 


164  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  upon  His  followers 
was  to  make  them  more  or  less  like  Him,  and  to  fill 
them  with  a  similar  desire  to  get  men  to  live  the 
life  of  love  which  is  the  life  of  God.  They  felt  them- 
selves inspired  by  the  same  spirit,  the  Holy  Spirit 
of  truth  and  love,  and  exalted  above  all  fear  for  their 
own  safety  and  all  desire  to  live  for  themselves  alone. 
They  loved  their  Lord  so  much  that  their  lives  be- 
came one  with  His  in  the  work  of  saving  the  world. 
They  could  see  no  difference  between  serving  their 
Master  and  serving  mankind.  This  love  force  of 
theirs,  this  intense  loyalty  to  Jesus,  was,  and  still  is, 
the  redeeming  thing  in  the  life  of  mankind.  There 
is  not  and  never  has  been  any  other  Atonement. 
The  divine  power  that  is  breaking  down  selfishness, 
and  transforming  human  desires  in  accordance  with 
the  eternal  truth  of  things,  is  the  spirit  of  self-sacrific- 
ing love.  It  is  but  a  step  from  sinner  to  saviour. 
To  cease  to  be  a  sinner  is  perforce  to  be  a  saviour. 
To  escape  from  the  dominion  of  selfishness  is  forth- 
with to  become  a  power  in  the  hand  of  God  for  the 
uplifting  and  ingathering  of  mankind  to  Himself; 
this  is  the  Atonement. 

Ask  yourself  whether  this  is  not  so.  What  other 
force  for  good  is  there  in  the  world  to-day  than  the 
spirit  which  governed  the  whole  life  of  Jesus  and 
rendered  Him  willing  to  brave  the  worst  that  evil 
could  do  in  His  desire  to  get  men  to  realise  the  true 
life?  There  is  no  other.  If  you  want  to  see  the 
Atonement  at  work,  go  wherever  love  is  ministering 


THE   ATONEMENT  165 

to  human  necessity  and  you  see  the  very  same  spirit 
which  was  in  Jesus,  the  spirit  which  heals  and  saves. 
Dogma  is  doing  nothing  to  save  the  world;  the  gospel 
of  self-sacrifice  is  doing  everything.  Show  me  a 
Christlike  life  and  I  will  show  you  a  part  of 
the  Atonement  of  Christ.  Show  me  a  noble  deed 
and  I  will  show  you  something  worthy  of  Jesus. 
His  self-offering,  and  the  love  and  devotion  it  awoke 
in  human  hearts,  are  a  perpetual  sacrifice,  a  cumula- 
tive assertion  that  in  the  presence  of  need  love  can 
never  do  anything  other  than  give  itself  until  the  need 
is  supplied  and  love  is  all  in  all.  There  is  even  a 
possibility  of  substitution  here.  Vicarious  suffering 
willingly  accepted  becomes  irresistible  in  the  long 
run  as  a  means  of  lifting  a  transgressor  out  of  the 
mire  of  selfishness.  Many  a  noble  wife  has  saved 
her  husband  by  remaining  at  his  side  and  patiently 
accepting  the  disabilities  caused  by  his  wrong-doing. 
It  is  even  possible  in  such  a  case  for  the  saviour  to 
bear  more  than  the  sinner,  and  for  the  sinner  to  be 
relieved  of  some  of  the  consequences  of  his  sin; 
he  would  have  to  suffer  more  if  there  were  no  loving 
helper  to  stand  by  him.  But  to  speak  of  one  as 
bearing  another's  punishment  is  untrue;  such  a 
thing  cannot  be.  All  that  love  can  do  is  to  share  to 
the  uttermost  in  the  painful  consequences  of  sin  and 
by  so  doing  break  their  power  What  other  Atone- 
ment is  needed  than  this?  It  requires  no  defence, 
and  a  child  could  understand  it.  Everyone  already 
believes  in  it,  whether  he  stops  to  think  about  it  or 


1 66  THE    NEW   THEOLOGY 

not.  While  I  am  writing  these  words  a  fierce  storm 
is  raging  outside.  This  is  the  second  day  we  have 
had  of  it,  and  there  seems  likely  to  be  some  loss  of 
life  on  the  dangerous  rocks  outside  the  bar  which 
forms  the  entrance  to  the  bay  below.  A  visitor 
has  just  been  telling  me  of  a  wilder  storm  in  this 
same  bay  some  years  ago,  and  of  which  he  says 
to-day's  gale  reminds  him.  On  that  previous  oc- 
casion three  ships  were  wrecked  together  within  a 
few  yards  of  this  house.  It  must  have  been  a  dread- 
ful, awe-inspiring  scene.  No  boat  could  live  on  the 
surf,  so  every  survivor  had  to  be  dragged  ashore  with 
ropes  fastened  to  the  cliffs  and  hauled  by  willing 
hands.  Hundreds  of  townspeople  and  fisher  folk 
came  pouring  over  from  St.  Ives  and  all  the  hamlets 
round  about  in  order  to  take  part  in  the  work  of 
rescue.  According  to  my  informant  the  scene  was 
enough  to  stir  any  heart,  and  even  grown  men  were 
crying  with  excitement  and  compassion  as  some  of 
the  poor  fellows  in  the  rigging  of  the  doomed  vessels 
were  washed  away  before  they  could  be  got  ashore. 
The  few  who  were  actually  snatched  from  the  jaws 
of  death  found  no  lack  of  willing  helpers  as  one  by  one 
they  were  passed  insensible  into  the  kind  keeping  of 
the  many  who  stood  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to 
be  of  service.  No  one  grudged  anything;  every  home 
and  every  bed  would  have  been  cheerfully  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  shipwrecked  mariners  if  they  had 
been  wanted.  Brave  women,  the  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  men  who  were  risking  their  lives  on  the  sea 


THE   ATONEMENT  167 

every  day,  willingly  encouraged  their  husbands  and 
sons  in  battling  against  the  tempest  in  the  endeavour 
to  save  other  husbands  and  sons  whom  they  had 
never  seen  or  heard  of  until  that  hour  of  distress  and 
need.  And  what  a  fight  it  was  to  be  sure !  Never 
was  a  braver.  Again  and  again  these  humble  Cor- 
nish heroes  dashed  into  the  raging  billows  to  grasp 
and  guide  the  ropes  that  bore  a  flickering  human  life, 
and  every  time  they  returned  with  their  helpless 
burden  a  cheer  went  up  from  the  watchers  that 
drowned  for  a  moment  the  violence  of  the  blast. 
No  one  thought  of  enquiring  into  the  theology  of 
saviours  or  survivors.  No  doubt  there  were  some 
among  the  former  who  were  oftener  to  be  found  at 
the  public-house  bar  than  at  church,  but  no  one 
could  have  distinguished  them  from  the  orthodox 
Christians  who  fought  the  waves  shoulder  to  shoulder 
beside  them;  they  were  there  to  save  life,  and  in  doing 
so  their  deeper  manhood  shone  out  with  divine 
splendour.  But  the  most  of  the  rescuers  were  good 
sound,  earnest  Methodists  who  perhaps  believed,  or 
thought  they  believed,  in  the  eternal  damnation  of 
the  unregenerate.  But  what  became  of  their  doctrine 
in  the  face  of  an  urgent  human  need  and  the  call 
for  self-sacrifice  to  supply  that  need  ?  It  was  utterly 
forgotten.  There  is  both  humour  and  pathos  in  the 
fact  that  these  convinced  believers  tugged  and  tore 
at  the  ropes,  and  freely  jeopardised  their  own  lives 
in  a  magnificent  endeavour  to  save  perishing  bodies 
from  temporal  water.  There  is  the  truth  for  you, 


1 68  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

the  real  Atonement.  The  heart  creed  is  usually 
better  than  the  head  creed,  and  in  great  moments 
buries  the  latter  out  of  sight.  Here  was  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  the  true  and  eternal  manhood,  the  spirit 
that  seeks  to  save  at  its  own  cost.  Here  was  the 
instinctive  perception  of  the  fundamental  oneness 
of  all  life  and  the  recognition  that  the  godlike  thing 
is  to  seek  to  deliver  life  from  the  clutch  of  death. 

All  men  instinctively  believe  in  the  Atonement.  — 
This  is  the  deepest  and  truest  impulse  of  the  human 
heart,  as  all  men  already  know  if  they  would  only 
trust  their  better  nature  to  tell  them  what  God  wants 
from  his  children.  Here  is  an  explosion  in  a  coal- 
mine, and  forthwith  every  mother's  son  above 
ground  volunteers  to  go  down  into  the  choke-damp 
to  snatch  his  buried  comrades  from  the  sleep  of  death. 
A  few  months  ago  one  such  disaster  took  place  in  a 
Durham  colliery.  Most  of  my  readers  will  remember 
that  in  the  newspaper  reports  of  the  incidents  that 
took  place  at  the  pit  mouth  were  the  following:  A 
father  who  was  brought  to  the  surface  was  asked 
whether  he  lost  hope  during  the  long  hours  of  his 
imprisonment  below  without  food  or  light.  "  No," 
was  the  reply,  "  for  I  knew  my  boy  would  be  in  the 
rescue  party,  and  that  nothing  would  turn  him  back 
until  he  found  his  father,  dead  or  alive."  The  suffra- 
gan bishop  of  the  diocese,  along  with  a  number  of 
other  clergymen  and  nonconformist  ministers,  re- 
mained all  night  amid  the  scene  of  sorrow  at  the  pit 
mouth,  doing  his  best  to  comfort  the  mourners  as 


THE   ATONEMENT  169 

their  loved  ones  were  brought  up  dead.  As  morning 
broke  he  mounted  a  heap  of  cinders  and,  without 
making  any  attempt  to  conceal  his  emotion,  spoke 
a  few  manly  words  of  brotherly  exhortation  and 
Christian  love  to  his  deeply  moved  congregation  of 
toilers  and  sufferers.  One  poor  woman,  with  un- 
conscious irony,  exclaimed  to  the  bystanders:  '  He 
doesn't  seem  like  a  bishop !  He  is  just  like  one  of 
ourselves."  That  servant  of  God  has  never  preached 
the  Atonement  more  effectually  in  all  his  life  —  by 
getting  together  of  man  and  man,  and  man  and 
God,  through  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice.  He  stands 
in  the  true  apostolic  succession,  the  succession  of 
men  like  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  erstwhile  persecutor, 
who,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  love  of  Jesus, 
lived  to  say,  "  Who  is  weak  and  I  am  not  weak? 
Who  is  offended  and  I  burn  not?  " 

Go  into  any  home  where  the  spirit  of  self-sacrificing 
love  is  trying  to  do  anything  to  supply  a  need  or  save 
a  transgressor,  and  you  see  the  Atonement.  Follow 
that  Salvation  lassie  to  the  slums,  and  listen  to  her  as 
she  tries  to  persuade  a  drunken  husband  and  father 
to  give  up  the  soul-destroying  habit  which  is  such  a 
curse  to  wife  and  child,  and  you  see  the  Atonement. 
Go  with  J.  Keir  Hardie  to  the  House  of  Commons 
and  listen  to  his  pleading  for  justice  to  his  order, 
and  you  see  the  Atonement.  Hear  the  prayer  of 
mother-love  for  the  erring,  wandering  son,  and  you 
have  the  Atonement.  See  that  grey-haired  father 
patiently  pleading  with  selfish,  hot-headed  youth, 


170  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

or  yielding  up  his  own  hard-won  possessions  to  pay 
the  gambler's  debts  and  save  the  family  name,  and 
you  have  the  Atonement.  Nothing  can  stir  the 
human  heart  so  much.  All  the  great  deeds  of  his- 
tory derived  their  inspiration  from  it;  all  the  little 
heroisms  of  our  common  everyday  life  are  the  dec- 
laration of  it.  There  is  not  a  single  one  of  all  our 
thoughts  and  activities  but  has  some  relation  to  it; 
we  are  either  living  for  ourselves  individually  and 
separately  or  we  are  living  for  the  whole.  If  the 
former,  we  are  the  servants  of  sin;  if  the  latter,  our 
lives  are  already  part  of  the  Atonement. 

Jesus  and  the  Atonement.  —  It  is  easy  to  see  how 
much  the  world  owes  to  Jesus  in  this  regard.  I 
cannot  tell  what  the  world  might  have  been  if  there 
had  never  been  a  Jesus,  but  certain  it  is  that  the 
sacrificial  life  and  death  of  Jesus  have  meant  the 
inpouring  of  a  spirit  into  human  affairs  such  as 
had  never  been  known  in  the  same  degree  before. 
Here  for  the  first  time  men  saw  a  perfect  manifesta- 
tion of  the  life  that  is  life  indeed,  the  life  that  pleased 
not  itself,  the  life  that  entered  into  and  shared  human 
disabilities  as  though  they  were  its  very  own,  the  life 
that  in  the  presence  of  selfishness  must  inevitably 
become  sacrifice,  the  life  of  Atonement.  In  a  sinful 
world  that  life  had  to  come  to  a  Calvary,  but  in  so 
doing  in  refusing  to  shield  and  save  itself  it  became 
the  greatest  moral  power  and  the  greatest  revelation 
of  God  that  the  world  has  ever  known.  What  we 
succeed  in  doing  some  of  the  time,  Jesus  did  all  the 


THE  ATONEMENT  171 

time;  when  all  men  are  able  to  do  it  all  the  time 
the  Atonement  will  have  become  complete  and  love 
divine  shall  be  all  in  all.  "Thou  hast  conquered, 
O  Galilean !  "  cried  Julian  the  apostate;  and  Chris- 
tian faith  can  reverently  add  — 

"  Jesus  is  worthy  to  receive 
Honour  and  power  divine ; 
And  blessings  more  than  we  can  give 
Be,  Lord,  forever  thine." 

Faith  in  Jesus  is  faith  in  the  Atonement  and  faith  in 
our  own  Christhood.  It  means  the  upraising  of  the 
true  We,  the  eternal  life,  within  our  own  souls. 
Until  His  spirit  becomes  our  spirit,  His  Atonement 
has  done  nothing  for  us,  and  when  it  does  we,  like 
Him,  become  saviours  of  the  race.  It  must  be  so,  for 
the  spirit  of  love  is  the  same  both  in  God  and  man; 
in  the  presence  of  need,  no  matter  what  the  need  may 
be,  that  spirit  must  continue  to  give  itself  without 
stint  until  the  need  is  supplied  and  all  that  would 
tend  to  separate  between  the  individual  soul  and  the 
eternal  perfect  whole  is  done  away. 

But  then,  someone  will  say,  what  has  the  death  of 
Jesus  effected  in  the  unseen  so  as  to  make  it  possible 
for  God  to  forgive  us  ?  Nothing  whatever,  and  noth- 
ing was  ever  needed.  God  is  not  a  fiend  but  a  Father, 
the  source  and  sustenance  of  our  being  and  the  goal 
of  all  our  aspirations.  Why  should  we  require  to 
be  saved  from  Him? 

Divine  satisfaction  in  Atonement.  —  But  in  what 
sense  is  the  death  of  Jesus  a  satisfaction  to  the  Father  ? 


172  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

In  no  sense  at  all,  except  that  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus 
is  the  highest  expression  of  the  innermost  of  God  that 
has  ever  been  made.  If  it  affords  an  artist  satis- 
faction to  express  himself  in  a  beautiful  picture,  or 
a  great  thinker  to  express  his  noble  thought  in  a 
book,  surely  the  highest  satisfaction  that  God 
can  know  must  be  his  self-expression  in  the  self- 
sacrifice  of  his  children.  At  its  best,  the  intensest 
joy  that  can  be  known  is  the  joy  of  giving  one's 
self  for  the  good  of  the  whole.  In  everything  grand 
and  good  in  human  thought  and  achievement  God 
is  doing  just  this.  It  is  the  satisfaction  he  receives 
from  the  Atonement  and  the  only  one. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE 

Atonement  and  New  Testament  language.  —  It 
will  have  been  observed  that  in  my  examination  of 
the  subject  of  the  Atonement  I  have  said  almost 
nothing  about  the  New  Testament  evidence  for  the 
doctrine.  This,  I  admit,  is  an  entire  departure  from 
the  method  usually  followed  by  those  who  write  upon 
it,  and  may  be  thought  by  some  to  vitiate  my  whole 
argument.  But  the  omission  is  of  set  purpose,  for 
I  am  convinced  that  New  Testament  language  about 
the  Atonement,  especially  the  language  of  St.  Paul, 
has  been,  and  still  is,  the  prolific  source  of  most  of 
the  mischievous  misinterpretations  of  it  which  exist 
in  the  religious  mind.  To  an  extent  this  is  the 
same  with  the  Old  Testament,  but  to  a  far  less 
degree,  for  the  language  of  the  Old  Testament  is  only 
liable  to  misapprehension  when  interpreted  by  the 
New.  In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  endeavoured  to 
show  the  imperishable  truths  which  underlie  Old 
Testament  symbolism  in  regard  to  the  Atonement, 
and  I  trust  I  have  shown  that  these  truths  are  as 
fresh  and  indispensable  to-day,  and  play  as  great  a 
part  in  human  affairs  as  they  ever  did.  But  before 
I  proceed  to  say  anything  about  the  New  Testa- 


174  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

ment  symbolism,  which  has  been  largely  derived  from 
the  Old,  let  us  consider  the  question  of  the  authority 
of  scripture  as  a  whole. 

Tendency  to  bow  to  external  authority.  — There 
is  always  a  tendency  in  the  ordinary  mind  to  rely 
upon  some  form  of  external  authority  in  religious 
as  in  other  matters.  With  one  man  it  is  the  authority 
of  an  infallible  church;  with  another  the  authority 
of  an  infallible  book;  with  another  the  authority  of 
some  infallible  statement  of  belief  which  ought  to 
hold  good  for  all  time,  but  never  does.  At  the  best, 
external  authority  is  only  a  crutch,  and  at  the  worst 
it  may  become  a  rigid  fetter  upon  the  expanding 
soul.  The  true  seat  of  authority  is  within,  not 
without,  the  human  soul.  We  are  so  constituted  as 
to  be  able  to  recognise,  little  by  little,  the  truth  of 
God  as  it  comes  to  us.  It  may  come  from  any  one 
of  a  thousand  different  quarters,  but  to  be  recog- 
nised and  felt  as  truth  it  must  awaken  an  echo 
within  the  individual  soul.  If  it  does  not  awaken 
such  a  response,  it  is  of  no  effect  so  far  as  the 
growth  of  the  soul  is  concerned.  What  is  true  in 
this  book  will  not  be  received  as  true  by  the  readers 
merely  because  I  say  it,  but  because  they  feel  it  to  be 
true  and  cannot  get  away  from  it.  Why  should  we 
be  afraid  of  trusting  the  human  soul  to  recognise 
and  respond  to  its  own  truth?  All  truth  is  one, 
and  all  earnest  truth-seekers  are  converging  upon  one 
goal.  It  is  the  divine  self  within  everyone  of  us  which 
enables  us  to  discern  the  truth  best  fitted  to  our 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  175 

needs,  and  this  divine  self  is,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  fundamentally  one  with  the  source  of 
all  truth,  which  is  God. 

If  men  could  only  come  to  see  this  more  clearly 
and  to  trust  their  own  divine  nature  to  enable  them  to 
follow  and  express  the  truth  as  well  as  to  receive 
it,  they  would  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  hampered 
by  formal  and  literal  statements  of  belief  whether 
hi  the  church,  the  Bible,  or  anywhere  else.  But 
this  is  what  they  seldom  do.  Your  devout  Anglican 
or  Roman  Catholic  will  tell  you  that  the  church 
teaches  this  or  the  church  teaches  that:  as  though 
that  fact  ever  permanently  settled  anything.  One 
cannot  really  begin  to  appreciate  the  value  of  united 
continuous  church  testimony  until  one  is  able  to 
stand  apart  from  it,  so  to  speak,  and  ask  whether 
it  rings  true  to  the  reason  and  the  moral  sense. 
Suppose  the  Christian  church  enjoined  or  permitted 
rape  and  murder,  would  the  devout  Catholic  be- 
lieve and  obey?  "  But  it  is  inconceivable  that  the 
church  could  ever  do  that,"  he  might  answer.  Yes, 
but  suppose  it  did,  would  he  obey  ?  If  not,  why  not  ? 
He  would  not  obey  because  he  would  know  quite 
well  that  the  higher  law  within  his  heart  would  for- 
bid and  render  impossible  any  such  obedience.  That 
is  all  the  answer  I  want.  Why  should  we  not  apply 
it  all  the  way  round  ?  The  real  test  of  truth  is  to  be 
found  in  the  response  it  awakens  within  the  soul. 

The  supposed  authority  of  the  letter  a  great  hin- 
drance to  truth. — Now  one  of  the  greatest  stumbling- 


176  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

blocks  in  the  way  of  many  devout  and  intelligent 
minds  to-day  is  that  of  the  supposed  binding  authority 
of  the  letter  of  scripture.  When  a  good  man  hears 
some  inspiring  or  common-sense  statement  of  truth, 
—  for  instance,  that  of  universal  salvation,  —  he 
often  replies  in  some  such  way  as  the  following: 
"  Yes,  I  know  it  seems  very  plausible,  and  my  heart 
desires  to  believe  it;  but  then,  you  know,  it  says  in 
the  scripture,  'These  shall  go  away  into  everlasting 
punishment,  but  the  righteousness  into  life  eternal.' 
I  cannot  get  behind  that."  He  will  go  on  stringing 
together,  passage  after  passage,  often  without  the 
slightest  suspicion  that  the  original  meaning  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  subject  under  dis- 
cussion ;  as,  for  example,  that  well-known  sentence  in 
Ezekiel,  "  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  What- 
ever Ezekiel  originally  meant  by  that  saying, — and  it 
is  well  worth  examination,  —  he  was  not  thinking 
of  a  modern  revival  meeting.  The  plain,  average, 
level-headed  business  man  of  religious  tempera- 
ment will  sometimes  bother  himself  in  this  way  until 
he  thinks  of  giving  up  religion  altogether.  The 
letter  of  scripture  often  seems  to  say  one  thing  and 
the  Christlike  human  heart  another.  Take,  as  one 
example  out  of  many,  that  pungent  passage  in  Psalm 
cxxxvii,  "  Happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh  and  dash- 
eth  thy  little  ones  against  the  stones."  That  passage 
does  not  breathe  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  nor  is  it  true  to 
the  best  in  human  nature;  no  follower  of  Jesus  wants 
to  see  a  little  one  dashed  against  a  stone.  But  even 


THE  AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  177 

to  do  justice  to  a  passage  of  this  kind  we  have  to  get 
into  intellectual  and  moral  sympathy  with  the  man 
who  wrote  it.  It  was  written  by  one  of  the  poor 
Jewish  prisoners  carried  away  captive  into  Babylon 
by  Nebuchadnezzar  six  centuries  or  more  before 
Jesus  was  born.  Try  and  picture  the  scene.  Across 
eight  hundred  miles  of  desert  that  melancholy  pro- 
cession winds  its  way,  leaving  the  highland  home 
behind  and  going  into  slavery  in  the  cruel  city  of 
the  plain.  One  by  one  the  weakest  fall  and  die; 
and  where  a  baby  is  left  without  a  mother,  or  the 
mother  cannot  walk  with  the  weight  of  the  helpless 
child,  the  cruel  Babylonian  ruffians  riding  at  the 
side  will  snatch  it  from  the  anguished  bosom  and 
dash  its  brains  out  against  the  rocks.  Should  we  be 
likely  to  forget  that  if  we  had  ever  formed  part  of 
such  a  procession  of  prisoners  of  war  ?  Hence  when 
Psalm  cxxxvii  came  to  be  written  by  some  poor 
suffering  father  who  had  lost  maybe  both  wife  and 
child,  he  gave  vent  to  his  feelings  in  one  of  the  most 
plaintive  patriotic  songs  ever  sung :  — 

By  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  down  —  yea,  we 
wept  when  we  remembered  Zion.  We  hanged  our  harps 
upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof,  for  there  they 
that  carried  us  away  captive  required  of  us  a  song ;  and 
they  that  wasted  us  required  of  us  mirth,  saying,  Sing  us 
one  of  the  songs  of  Zion.  How  shall  we  sing  the  Lord's 
song  in  a  strange  land  ?  If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem, 
let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning.  ...  O  daughter 
of  Babylon,  who  art  to  be  destroyed ;  happy  shall  he  be 


178  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

that  rewardeth  thee  as  thou  hast  served  us.  Happy 
shall  he  be  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against 
the  stones ! 

One  can  feel  deep  sympathy  with  this  unknown  poet 
and  his  suffering  people  without  adopting  the  absurd 
view  that  this  passage  represents  God's  word  to  our 
souls.  It  is  a  cry  of  suffering  mingled  with  a  desire 
for  vengeance,  and  that  is  all.  But  when  a  preacher 
declares  that  he  takes  his  stand  and  bases  his  gospel 
on  the  infallible  Book,  he  is  either  a  fool  or  —  a 
rhetorician. 

Belief  in  the  infallible  Book  impossible.  — There 
are  many  good  people  who  maintain  that  they  be- 
lieve the  Bible  from  cover  to  cover,  and  they  seem  to 
think  that  this  is  something  to  be  proud  of.  But  they 
credit  themselves  with  an  impossible  feat;  no  one 
can  believe  contradictions,  in  the  sense  of  accepting 
them,  whether  intellectual  or  moral.  The  very  same 
people  who  will  read  with  unction  the  most  sanguin- 
ary exhortations  from  scripture  are  usually  people 
who  themselves  would  not  hurt  a  fly.  The  Bible 
is  not  like  a  parliamentary  blue  book,  an  exact  and 
literal  statement  of  facts;  it  represents  for  the  most 
part  what  earnest  men  belonging  to  a  particular 
nationality  in  a  bygone  age  thought  about  life  in 
relation  to  God.  Many  good  people  talk  as  though 
the  Bible  were  written  by  the  finger  of  God  Himself 
and  let  down  from  heaven;  on  the  other  hand  there 
are  those  who  think  that  when  they  have  shown  the 
inconsistencies  of  scripture,  they  have  destroyed 


THE  AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  179 

its  value.  But  they  are  both  mistaken.  The  Bible 
is  not  one  book,  but  a  collection  of  books,  a  slow 
growth  extending  over  centuries.  It  has  come  to  be 
reverenced  not  because  of  any  supernormal  attesta- 
tions of  its  authority,  but  because  we  have  found  it 
helps  us  more  than  any  other  book.  The  fact  that 
the  best  part  of  it  was  written  by  good  and  serious 
men,  men  who  were  living  for  the  highest  they  were 
able  to  see,  does  not  necessarily  give  binding  author- 
ity to  the  opinions  of  these  men.  I  question  whether 
we  should  ever  have  heard  of  the  Old  Testamemt 
if  it  had  not  been  for  Jesus,  and  the  New  is  only 
a  statement  of  what  some  good  men  thought  about 
Jesus  and  his  gospel  at  the  beginning  of  Christian 
history.  Jesus  knew  and  loved  the  Old  Testament 
scriptures,  but  whenever  He  found  a  statement  therein 
that  jarred  upon  His  moral  sense,  He  rejected  it  in 
the  name  of  the  higher  truth  declared  by  the  Spirit 
of  Truth  within  His  own  soul :  "Ye  have  heard  that 
it  was  said  by  them  of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  kill; 
and  whosoever  shall  kill  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
judgment.  But  I  say  unto  you  that  whosoever 
is  angry  with  his  brother  without  a  cause  "  —  and 
even  "  without  a  cause  "  seems  to  have  been  inter- 
polated in  later  days  —  "  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
judgment."  "  Again  ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been 
said  by  them  of  old  time,  Thou  shalt  not  forswear 
thyself,  but  shalt  perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths. 
But  I  say  unto  you,  Swear  not  at  all,  neither  by  the 
heavens,  for  it  is  God's  throne,  nor  by  the  earth,  for 


180  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

it  is  His  footstool.  Let  your  communication  be  Yea, 
yea,  nay,  nay;  for  whatsoever  is  more  than  these 
cometh  of  evil."  "  Ye  hath  heard  that  it  hath 
been  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thine  neighbour  and  hate 
thine  enemy :  but  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies, 
bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate 
you,  and  pray  for  them  that  despitefully  use  you  and 
persecute  you."  Jesus  knew  what  He  was  doing. 
In  all  these  instances  He  was  quoting  from  the 
Old  Testament,  and  deliberately  superseding  in  the 
name  of  truth  certain  prescriptions  of  the  very  law 
which  He  said  He  had  come  to  fulfil.  Everyone 
was  taken  by  surprise  at  His  daring  to  do  this.  Mat- 
thew vii.  28,  29,  says,  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  when 
Jesus  had  ended  these  sayings,  that  the  people  were 
astonished  at  His  teaching;  for  He  taught  them  as 
one  having  (in  Himself)  authority,  and  not  as  the 
scribes."  No  doubt  some  people  would  say  to-day 
that  this  authority  came  from  His  Godhead.  But 
the  people  on  the  hillsides  of  Galilee  knew  nothing 
about  the  Godhead  of  Jesus.  To  them  He  was  a 
heaven-sent  teacher,  a  great  and  inspiring  master, 
whose  words  carried  weight.  His  authority,  there- 
fore, must  have  been  self-evident  in  contradistinction 
to  that  of  the  scribes,  who  always  began  their  dis- 
courses by  saying,  "It  is  written."  They  never 
seem  to  have  thought  of  appealing  to  anything  else 
than  the  authority  of  the  letter.  But  we  see  that 
Jesus,  notwithstanding  His  reverence  for  the  scrip- 
ture, handled  it  with  perfect  freedom.  His  author- 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  l8l 

ity  was  that  of  the  Spirit  of  God  speaking  within 
His  own  soul,  the  only  authority  that  has  ever  mat- 
tered in  the  history  of  religious  thought.  He  did 
not  deny  the  authority  of  Scripture,  but  He  claimed 
to  be  able  to  see  when  it  rang  true  to  His  own  inner 
experience  and  when  it  did  not. 

The  true  seat  of  authority.  —  If  we  could  grasp 
this  principle  clearly  and  strongly,  it  would  give  us 
a  new  and  higher  sense  of  freedom  and  of  con- 
fidence in  the  word  of  God  as  declared  in  the  Bible 
and  revealed  in  human  hearts.  God  has  never 
stopped  speaking  to  men.  He  speaks  through  us 
collectively  and  individually.  "The  word  is  very 
nigh  unto  thee,  in  thy  mouth  and  in  thine  heart, 
that  thou  mayest  do  it."  If  we  are  only  in  earnest 
to  listen  for  the  divine  voice  and  to  trust  it  when  we 
hear  it,  we  shall  not  listen  in  vain.  To  realise  that 
God  is  speaking  to  us  just  as  He  spoke  to  earnest 
souls  in  the  days  of  old  will  send  us  to  the  sacred 
scriptures  with  an  even  greater  appreciation  and 
reverence  for  the  men  of  whose  experience  they  are 
the  expression.  But  they  will  no  longer  bind  us; 
they  can  only  help  and  encourage  us.  We  shall  feel 
that  these  men  of  faith  of  an  earlier  day  and  a  differ- 
ent race  were  our  brothers  after  all,  men  who  lived 
a  life  much  like  our  own,  and  who  were  trying  to 
understand  God  as  we  are  trying  to  understand  Him. 
The  Bible  is  not  infallible  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  human  nature,  even  of  wise  and  great  men,  is 
not  infallible.  It  helps  us  because  these  men  were 


1 82  THE    NEW   THEOLOGY 

struggling  with  the  same  problems  as  ourselves, 
and  therefore  what  they  have  to  say  about  them  is 
valuable.  But  the  best  of  them  had  their  limitations 
and  shortcomings.  They  did  not  know  all  the  truth 
that  was  to  be  known,  but  they  kept  their  faces  to 
the  light.  If  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  fettered  by 
their  actual  words,  we  shall  be  in  danger  of  losing 
sympathy  with  them  in  the  spirit  which  animated 
those  words.  We  are  writing  a  Bible  with  our  own 
lives  to-day,  a  Bible  which  may  never  be  read  in  its 
fulness  by  human  eyes,  but  every  letter  of  which  is 
known  and  read  in  heaven.  Every  noble  life  is  a 
word  of  God  to  the  world;  every  brave,  unselfish 
deed  is  a  ray  of  eternal  truth.  Our  characters  ought 
to  become  living  epistles  known  and  read  of  all  men 
while  we  strive  to  express  the  best  that  God  has 
given  us  to  see ;  for  the  same  eternal  Spirit  of  Truth, 
the  Spirit  who  has  been  the  teacher  of  all  the  Elijahs, 
Isaiahs,  and  Pauls  of  history  is  with  us  to-day  as  He 
was  with  them. 

The  unity  of  truth.  —  But,  someone  will  remon- 
strate, What  then  are  we  to  believe  ?  For  by  speak- 
ing in  this  way  you  erect  as  many  standards  of  truth 
as  there  are  individuals.  What  the  ordinary  man 
wants  is  to  be  told  just  what  to  believe,  so  that  he 
can  settle  down  and  be  at  rest.  It  is  small  comfort 
to  tell  him  that  every  scripture  statement  may  be 
more  or  less  fallible,  and  that  he  must  trust  to  his 
own  perception,  or  perhaps  to  his  own  fancies,  as  to 
what  is  true.  I  know  all  that  kind  of  argument.  It 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  183 

is  as  old  as,  or  older  than,  Christianity  itself.  It  was 
used  in  all  sincerity  against  Jesus  by  some  earnest 
people  of  His  time.  It  was  used  again  at  the  Ref- 
ormation. It  is  still  used  by  sacerdotal  controver- 
sialists, and  looks  very  plausible  on  the  face  of  it. 
A  devout  and  earnest  Roman  Catholic  will  tell  you 
that  in  Protestantism  there  are  a  thousand  different 
creeds,  all  claiming  to  be  authoritative,  and  that  the 
principle  of  private  judgment  can  only  lead  to  intel- 
lectual and  moral  chaos.  Your  Protestant  literalist 
will  tell  you  that  the  Romanist  criticism  has  a  good 
deal  in  it,  and  that  you  must  have  a  final  standard 
of  authority,  either  the  infallible  church,  the  infalli- 
ble Book,  or  the  infallible  Confession  of  Faith.  But 
notwithstanding  the  dogmatists  the  supposed  infal- 
lible Confession  of  Faith  is  almost  universally  dis- 
credited, and  common  honesty  is  compelling  Prot- 
estants to  abandon  the  theory  of  an  infallible  Book. 
The  supposed  infallible  church  has  by  no  means 
been  invariably  self-consistent.  Besides,  the  impor- 
tant point  is  this;  no  man  really  believes  or  can 
believe  a  thing  until  it  becomes,  so  to  speak,  part  of 
himself.  Holding  propositions  is  not  necessarily  be- 
lieving them,  no  matter  how  tenaciously  they  may  be 
adhered  to.  But  all  truth  is  really  one  and  the  same. 
I  may  be  unable  to  take  exactly  my  neighbour's 
point  of  view  about  some  aspects  of  it,  but  if  we  are 
both  in  earnest  and  faithful  to  what  we  have  seen,  we 
shall  arrive  in  the  end  at  the  same  goal.  Religious 
thinkers  and  teachers  are  never  really  so  far  apart  as 


184  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

seems  to  be  the  case.  It  is  in  the  expression  of  the 
truth  that  they  differ,  not  in  the  truth  itself.  Lan- 
guage is  never  more  than  approximately  convenient 
expression  of  the  reality  it  is  meant  to  declare.  The 
man  of  the  future  will  realise  this  better  than  the 
man  of  the  present  or  the  past.  He  will  replace 
all  external  authority  by  the  principle  of  spiritual 
autonomy.  He  will  no  longer  be  afraid  of  trusting 
the  human  spirit  to  recognise  and  respond  to  truth 
from  whatsoever  source  it  may  come,  for  he  will  know 
that  that  spirit  is  one  with  the  universal  Spirit  of  all 
Truth,  and  needs  not  to  look  beyond  itself  for  any- 
thing stronger  or  more  divine.  He  will  know  that 
the  Spirit  of  Truth  in  himself  is  the  Spirit  of  Truth 
in  all  men,  and  that  therefore  in  the  end  all  men 
must  know,  and  be,  and  do  the  Truth. 

The  New  Testament  and  the  Atonement.  —  Now 
let  us  apply  this  principle  to  the  New  Testament 
writings  about  the  redeeming  work  of  Jesus.  The 
same  principle,  of  course,  would  apply  to  anything 
that  the  New  Testament  has  to  say  about  the  gospel 
of  Jesus,  but  perhaps  the  failure  to  recognise  it  has 
done  more  mischief  in  connection  with  the  doctrine 
of  Atonement  than  in  anything  else.  At  present 
Paul's  opinion  on  this  great  subject  is  by  many 
people  supposed  to  be  decisive:  Paul  says  this,  and 
Paul  says  that,  and  when  Paul  has  spoken,  there  is 
no  more  to  be  said.  But  why  should  it  be  so  ?  Paul's 
opinion  is  simply  Paul's  opinion,  and  not  necessarily 
a  complete  and  adequate  statement  of  truth.  It  is 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  185 

entitled  to  be  considered  weighty  because  it  is  the 
utterance  of  a  great  man,  and  a  great  seer  of  truth, 
as  well  as  being  the  earliest  writing  on  the  subject 
which  we  possess.  Any  man  of  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual eminence  of  Paul  is  entitled  to  reverence 
when  he  speaks,  whether  his  views  are  in  the  Bible 
or  not.  It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  the 
words  of  this  Paul  who  strove  so  hard  against  liter- 
alism and  legalism  in  his  day  have  since  come  to  be 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  fixed  and  final  authority  for 
Christian  thought.  He  would  be  the  first  to  denounce 
it.  To  him  the  Spirit  of  Christ  operating  within  the 
individual  soul  was  the  true  guide  in  matters  of  faith. 
He  even  made  a  point  of  the  fact  that  in  thinking  out 
the  truth  about  Jesus  and  His  gospel  he  had  "  con- 
ferred not  with  flesh  and  blood." 

Inconsistency  of  New  Testament  writers  with  one 
another.  —  Again,  it  is  somehow  taken  for  granted 
that  Paul  and  all  the  other  New  Testament  writers 
agree  together  in  their  theology  of  the  Atonement. 
That  is  quite  a  mistake,  and  the  curious  thing  is  that 
people  should  have  been  so  slow  in  finding  it  out. 
It  may  be  instructive  to  some  to  give  a  brief  survey 
of  the  main  points  in  Paul's  theory  of  the  Atonement, 
and  compare  them  with  some  of  the  others. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  its  Atonement  always 
the  same.  —  It  would  simplify  our  acquaintance  with 
Paul's  modes  of  reasoning  if  we  could  recognise 
that  the  truth  of  Atonement  which  he  has  to  declare, 
and  which  he  associates  so  closely  with  the  life  and 


1 86  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

death  of  Jesus,  is  in  principle  precisely  the  same  as 
that  which  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  had  in 
mind.  What  that  was  we  have  already  seen.  It 
was  the  assertion  of  the  fundamental  oneness  of 
God  and  man,  and  the  means  to  it  was  the  principle 
of  self-sacrifice.  This  is  just  what  St.  Paul  set  him- 
self to  proclaim  to  the  world,  and  to  him  the  whole 
process  centred  in  Jesus,  just  as  it  does  for  Christian 
experience.  But  to  his  presentation  of  the  subject 
Paul  almost  of  necessity  had  to  bring  the  whole 
apparatus  of  his  rabbinical  training.  This  it  was 
which  supplied  him  with  the  most  of  his  figures, 
symbols,  and  illustrations;  but  his  gospel  was  no 
more  dependent  upon  these  than  —  as  I  trust  I  have 
shown  in  a  previous  chapter  —  the  ancient  spiritual 
truth  of  Atonement  depended  upon  Semitic  ritual 
sacrifices.  Paul's  thought-forms  were  supplied  by 
the  Old  Testament  and  his  Pharisaic  education, 
just  as  the  forms  in  which  we  ordinarily  express  our 
thoughts  to-day  belong  to  the  mental  atmosphere  of 
our  time.  Most  of  the  allusions  in  a  Times  leading 
article,  for  example,  would  be  lost  upon  an  English 
reader  five  hundred  years  hence  unless  they  were 
carefully  explained.  To  me  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able things  about  Jesus  is  the  fact  that  He  was  able 
to  escape  so  completely  the  mental  environment  of 
the  time  in  which,  and  the  people  among  whom, 
He  lived  His  earthly  life.  How  He  managed  to 
deliver  His  peerless  teaching  while  making  so  little 
allusion  to  current  Jewish  modes  of  thought  and 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  187 

worship  is  a  mystery,  and  marks  His  greatness  as 
perhaps  nothing  else  does.  It  was  utterly  different 
with  Paul;  he  spoke  the  language  of  his  time,  and 
never  tried  to  do  anything  else.  When,  therefore, 
we  want  to  get  at  what  he  meant  about  the  death  of 
Jesus,  we  have  first  of  all  to  get  behind  the  symbolism 
by  which  he  illustrates  it,  and  even  when  we  have 
done  this  we  have  to  make  allowance  for  some 
limiting  Pharisaic  conceptions  about  justice  and  the 
punishment  of  sin.  Every  now  and  then  he  breaks 
through  these  and  rises  into  a  rarer,  purer  region 
without  troubling  about  consistency.  Paul  never 
dreamed  that  he  was  writing  theological  treatises 
which  would  be  numbered  off  into  chapters  and 
verses  and  lectured  upon  in  class  rooms,  or  perhaps 
he  would  have  been  more  careful  about  being  exact. 
How  many  of  us  could  afford  to  have  our  letters, 
written  at  different  times  and  to  different  readers, 
analysed  and  dissected  and  taken  as  a  full  and  per- 
manent statement  of  our  thought  upon  any  particular 
subject  or  group  of  subjects  ? 

Paul's  view  of  the  death  of  the  Saviour  and  the 
forgiveness  of  sins. — The  first  important  thing 
to  be  noted  in  Paul's  thought  about  sin  and  salva- 
tion is  his  view  that  there  was  a  vital  connection 
between  the  death  of  the  Messiah  and  God's  forgive- 
ness of  sins.  But  we  should  be  mightily  mistaken 
if  we  were  to  understand  this  view  to  be  the  same 
as  that  of  a  modern  evangelical  who  talks  about  the 
"  fountain  filled  with  blood,"  for  it  was  quite  differ- 


1 88  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

ent.  The  modern  evangelical,  of  so-called  orthodox 
opinions,  believes  that  Jesus  died  to  save  all  men 
from  hell ;  but  this  was  not  what  Paul  was  thinking 
about  at  all.  According  to  Paul,  the  wages  of  sin 
were  actually  and  literally  death.  But  for  sin  there 
would  have  been  no  death,  and  to  break  the  power 
of  sin  would  also  be  to  break  the  power  of  death. 
But  in  this  Paul  was  wrong,  in  company  with  a  good 
many  of  his  contemporaries,  and  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  frankly  say  so,  for,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  the  great  apostle  did  not  confine  him- 
self to  the  literal  statement  of  this  view,  but  gave 
it  also  a  mystical  form  in  which  it  becomes  indis- 
putably true.  In  his  thought  the  Messiah  of  Jewish 
national  expectation  was  the  head  and  representative 
of  the  nation  in  its  relation  to  God.  For  ages  men 
had  been  dying  because  of  sin  —  "in  Adam  all 
die  "  —  and  so  when  the  Sinless  One  came  into 
human  conditions  and  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh, 
He  also  had  to  pass  through  death.  But  there  was 
a  difference  between  His  death  and  all  other  deaths 
in  that,  being  sinless,  death  could  not  hold  Him,  and 
so  He  rose  again  from  the  tomb  triumphant  over  it. 
His  triumph  then  becomes  potentially  the  triumph 
of  humanity  —  "in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive  " 
—  if  only  we  unite  ourselves  to  Him  by  faith.  God 
will  remit  the  death  penalty  to  all  who  are  "  in 
Christ  "  and  "  justified  by  faith" ;  that  is,  we  shall  all 
rise  from  the  dead  as  He  rose.  Apparently  Paul's 
belief  was  that  no  one  would  ever  have  died  but  for 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  189 

the  sin  of  Adam,  a  taint  which  has  affected  all 
Adam's  descendants.  Death  in  his  view  was 
synonymous  with  annihilation. 

The  next  thing  to  be  noticed  is  the  juridical  nature 
of  Paul's  conception  of  the  relationship  of  man 
and  God.  God  is  a  lawgiver  and  man  a  trans- 
gressor, a  rebel  against  his  sovereignty.  In  accord- 
ance with  God's  law  of  righteousness  sin  is  punish- 
able by  the  death  of  the  whole  race.  "The  wrath 
of  God  is  revealed  from  heaven  against  all  ungodli- 
ness and  unrighteousness  of  men."  But  when  the 
eternal  Son  of  God,  the  head  and  representative 
of  the  race,  submits  to  this  penalty  and  in  so  doing 
acknowledges  the  righteousness  of  God,  justice  is 
satisfied.  "  If  one  died  for  all,  therefore  all  died." 
Those  who  claim  by  faith  the  benefits  of  Messiah's 
submission  to  death  on  behalf  of  the  race  are  at 
peace  with  God.  Henceforth  they  are  not  to  live 
to  themselves,  but  unto  Him  who  died  for  them  and 
rose  again. 

Anyone  who  reads  Paul's  words  without  dogmatic 
prejudice  will  see  that  this  is  not  the  present-day 
doctrine  of  Atonement.  It  takes  for  granted  certain 
ideas  which  were  current  among  the  Jews  of  Paul's 
day,  but  which  have  since  sunk  into  the  background 
of  Christian  thought  or  been  abandoned  altogether. 
Paul's  use  of  them  in  the  framing  of  his  theology 
is  ingenious  but  not  convincing,  and  was  not  essen- 
tial to  his  gospel;  in  fact  the  juridical  and  the  ethical 
elements  in  Paul's  teaching  stand  in  irreconcilable 


1 90  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

contrast.  His  theology  is  saved  by  his  mysticism, 
for  no  sooner  has  he  enunciated  these  unbelievable 
propositions  about  the  death  penalty  of  sin,  the  judi- 
cial sovereignty  of  God,  justification  by  faith,  the 
imputed  merits  of  the  Redeemer,  and  such  like, 
than  he  proceeds  to  use  them  as  symbols  to  illustrate 
a  subjective  change  in  the  sinner  and  a  mystical 
union  between  the  soul  and  Christ.  He  does  this 
so  beautifully  that  the  reader  can  hardly  discern 
where  Paul  quits  the  region  of  literalism  and  takes 
us  into  that  of  mysticism.  Hence  he  talks  about 
dying  with  Christ,  being  crucified  with  Christ,  dying 
to  sin,  and  so  on,  evidently  meaning  that  the  whole 
redeeming  process  has  to  take  place  within  the  soul 
of  the  sinner  who  seeks  God.  Even  the  conception 
of  the  resurrection  ceases  to  be  literal  and  becomes 
the  uprising  of  the  divine  man  within  the  human  soul 
by  faith  in  the  risen  Lord.  "  If  any  man  be  in  Christ 
there  is  a  new  creation;  old  things  are  passed  away; 
behold  all  things  are  become  new."  "There  is 
therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them  which  are 
in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  but  after 
the  Spirit."  We  see  from  these  expressions  that  in 
practice  Paul  transfers  the  whole  drama  of  redemp- 
tion from  without  to  within  the  individual  soul. 
What  a  pity  it  is  that  his  interpreters  in  Christian 
history  have  so  seldom  thought  of  doing  the  same ! 
The  Hebrews  theory.  —  The  epistle  to  the  He- 
brews belongs  to  quite  a  different  category  from  the 
writings  of  St.  Paul.  The  dominant  thought  in 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  191 

this  epistle  is  that  of  salvation  by  sacrifice,  a  per- 
fectly true  and  spiritual  idea,  as  we  have  already 
seen.  The  writer,  like  Paul,  employs  Old  Testament 
symbolism,  but  in  quite  a  different  way.  Probably 
this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  an  Alexandrian 
Jew  whose  thinking  was  shaped  under  the  influence 
of  Philo,  whereas  that  of  Paul  was  governed  by  the 
rabbinical  schools  of  Palestinian  Judaism.  At  this 
time  Alexandria  was  the  greatest  intellectual  centre 
in  the  world,  a  meeting  place  for  Greek  thought 
and  Hebrew  religion  as  represented  by  Philo.  The 
influence  of  Alexandria  is  plainly  to  be  seen  in  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which,  possibly,  was  written 
by  the  learned  and  courtly  Apollos.  Like  Paul, 
the  writer  thinks  of  salvation  as  getting  right  with 
God  and  living  a  holy  life,  but  he  omits  all  reference 
to  a  judicial  penalty,  or  the  necessity  for  escaping 
annihilation  by  faith  in  the  substitutionary  work 
of  a  sinless  Redeemer.  In  his  view  Christ  is  from 
first  to  last  the  priestly  representative  of  the  race, 
making  a  sacrifice  to  God  after  the  Old  Testament 
fashion,  but  in  a  more  perfect  way.  He  regards  the 
Old  Testament  sacrificial  offerings  as  being  but  the 
types  and  shadows  of  the  one  perfect  and  eternal 
offering  which  humanity  through  Christ  is  making 
to  God.  Most  of  my  readers  will  at  once  admit 
that  this  is  not  fanciful,  although  the  language  in 
which  it  is  expressed  is  so  different  from  our  own; 
it  is  quite  faithful  to  the  spiritual  meaning  of  Old 
Testament  sacrifice.  When,  therefore,  this  writer 


IQ2  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

refers  to  the  offering  of  the  blood  of  Christ,  he  is 
thinking  not  only  of  Calvary,  but  of  all  that  Calvary 
symbolises,  the  perfect  spiritual  offering  of  man- 
kind to  God,  the  sacramental  realisation  of  our 
oneness  with  Him.  This  view  is  not  worked  out 
with  the  moral  intensity  which  characterises  St. 
Paul's,  but  it  is  unassailably  true  once  we  get  the 
writer's  point  of  view.  As  a  theory  it  is  quite  differ- 
ent from  Paul's,  unless  we  are  content  to  shed  Paul's 
literalism,  get  rid  of  all  thought  of  an  angry  God 
and  a  physical  death  penalty  for  sin,  and  betake 
ourselves  instead  to  the  inner  spiritual  region  where 
self-sacrifice  is  realised  to  be  the  means  of  saving, 
not  only  the  individual,  but  the  whole  race,  by  uniting 
it  to  the  source  of  all  being. 

The  Johannine  theory.  —  There  is  a  certain 
similarity  between  the  view  of  Atonement  set  forth 
in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  that  contained 
in  the  Johannine  writings.  It  is  easy  to  understand 
why  this  is  so  when  we  recognise  that  both  are  domi- 
nated by  Alexandrian  modes  of  thinking.  These 
Johannine  writings  —  the  fourth  gospel,  the  three 
epistles  ascribed  to  St.  John,  and  the  book  of  Reve- 
lation —  are  all  that  have  come  down  to  us  of  what 
was  at  one  time,  no  doubt,  a  considerable  literature. 
How  much  the  apostle  John  had  to  do  with  it  cannot 
be  determined  with  any  certainty,  but  it  is  clear 
enough  that  these  writings  are  not  all  from  one  hand, 
and  that  they  are  much  later  than  the  work  of  St. 
Paul.  The  all-important  conception  in  the  Johan- 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  193 

nine  writings  is  that  salvation  is  secured  by  the  union 
of  the  individual  soul  with  the  eternal  Christ,  or 
Logos,  or  Divine  Man  of  pre-Christian  thought  and 
experience.  Here  again  we  have  a  perfectly  true 
and  necessary  idea,  an  idea  implied  in  all  spiritual 
experience  worthy  of  the  name;  but  as  the  root 
factor  in  a  presentation  of  the  doctrine  of  Atone- 
ment, it  differs  widely  from  Paul's  way  of  putting 
things.  When  the  Johannine  writers  speak  of  the 
blood  of  Christ,  they  mean  the  outpoured,  forthgiven 
life  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  the  ideal  humanity, 
perfectly  and  centrally  expressed  in  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth. There  is  not  from  beginning  to  end  a  hint  or 
a  suggestion  in  these  writings  that  a  sinless  being 
was  tortured  in  order  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God 
against  guilty  ones,  or  that  the  penalty  of  sin  in  a 
world  to  come  will  be  remitted  to  a  penitent  sinner 
in  consideration  of  his  faith  in  such  an  arrangement. 
Underlying  unity.  —  This  is  by  no  means  an  ex- 
haustive examination  of  New  Testament  teaching 
on  the  subject  of  Atonement,  but  it  should  be  suffi- 
cient to  show  two  things:  first,  that  the  theories 
of  the  New  Testament  writers  concerning  the  re- 
deeming works  of  Christ  are  not,  taken  literally, 
mutually  consistent;  secondly,  the  truth  implied 
in  all  the  theories  is  precisely  that  truth  of  Atone- 
ment which  we  have  already  seen  to  be  implied  in 
all  religion.  The  great  thing  which  impressed  the 
primitive  Christian  consciousness  in  regard  to  the 
life  and  death  of  Jesus  was  that  this  life  and  death 


194  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

were  the  most  complete  and  consistent  self-offering 
of  the  individual  to  the  whole  that  had  ever  been 
made.  In  this  self-offering  was  the  one  perfect 
manifestation  of  the  eternal  Christ,  the  humanity 
which  reveals  the  innermost  of  God,  the  humanity 
which  is  love.  To  partake  of  the  benefits  of  that 
Atonement  we  have  to  unite  ourselves  to  it;  that  is, 
to  employ  the  mystical  language  of  St.  Paul,  we  have 
to  die  to  self  with  Christ  and  rise  with  Him  into 
the  experience  of  larger,  fuller  life,  the  life  eternal. 
It  is  just  the  same  truth  under  every  one  of  these 
different  theories,  but  if  we  persist  in  regarding  them 
literally  we  shall  miss  it,  for  by  no  kind  of  ingenuity 
can  we  square  the  theory  of  St.  Paul  with  that  of 
the  other  writers;  the  way  of  putting  it  is  different. 
But  once  we  see  what  the  essential  truth  of  Atone- 
ment is,  we  are  no  longer  bound  by  the  intellectual 
symbolism  of  Paul  or  Hebrews  or  any  other  author- 
ity; we  can  get  beneath  the  symbol  to  the  thing 
symbolised.  The  Pauline  principle  of  dying  with 
Christ,  the  Hebrews  idea  of  the  eternal  sacrifice 
manifested  in  time,  the  Johannine  thought  about 
the  outpoured  life  of  the  eternal  Christ,  are  all  one 
and  the  same.  Jesus  did  nothing  for  us  which  we 
are  not  also  called  upon  to  do  for  ourselves  and  one 
another  in  our  degree.  Faith  in  His  atoning  work 
means  death  to  self  that  we  may  live  to  God;  as 
selfhood  perishes  on  its  Calvary,  the  Christ,  the  true 
man,  the  divine  reality,  in  whom  we  are  one  with 
all  men,  rises  in  power  in  our  hearts  and  unites  us 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  195 

to  the  source  of  all  goodness  and  joy.  Institutional, 
forensic,  external,  the  Atonement  never  has  been 
and  never  will  be.  But  vicarious  suffering,  willingly 
accepted,  is  the  great  redeeming  force  by  which 
the  world  is  gradually  being  won  to  its  true  life  in 
God,  for  vicarious  suffering  is  the  expression  of 
the  law  that  in  a  finite  world  the  service  of  the  whole 
involves  pain,  although  it  is  also  the  deepest  joy  that 
the  human  heart  can  know.  The  sacrifice  of  Jesus 
is  the  central  and  ideal  expression  of  this  principle 
on  the  field  of  time,  but  it  only  possesses  meaning 
and  value  as  it  is  repeated  in  our  lives;  the  Christ 
has  to  be  offered  perpetually  on  the  altar  of  human 
hearts.  There  is  no  justification  except  by  becoming 
just,  and  no  imputed  righteousness  which  means 
availing  ourselves  of  merits  that  are  not  ours.  We 
are  "  justified  by  faith,"  indeed,  but  only  in  the 
sense  that  no  man  can  become  good  without  believ- 
ing in  goodness,  and  no  man  can  really  believe  in 
the  Christ  revealed  in  Jesus  without  gradually 
becoming  like  Him.  Here  is  Atonement,  Justifica- 
tion, Sanctification,  and  all  else  that  is  needed  to 
unite  mankind  to  the  life  eternal  which  is  to  know 
God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  He  has  sent. 

No  Old  Testament  prophecy  of  Atonement  of 
Jesus.  —  It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  point  out 
that  there  is  therefore  no  direct  reference  in  the  Old 
Testament  to  the  atoning  work  of  Jesus.  All  the 
beautiful  passages  with  which  we  are  so  familiar, 
and  which  have  become  the  language  of  devotion 


196  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

in  reference  to  such  sacred  seasons  as  Christmas 
Day  and  Good  Friday,  can  only  be  associated  with 
Jesus  in  an  ideal  sense.  The  noble  fifty-third  of 
Isaiah,  for  example,  and  all  similar  passages  about 
the  prophetic  conception  of  the  suffering  servant  of 
God,  have,  literally  understood,  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  Jesus.  But  the  striking  thing  about  such 
passages  is  that  the  men  who  wrote  them  were  able 
to  realise  and  express  the  very  essence  of  the  spiritual 
Atonement,  the  giving  of  the  individual  for  the  race. 
The  pathetic  and  inspiring  description,  "  He  was 
despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows  and 
acquainted  with  grief,  and  we  hid  as  it  were  our 
faces  from  him,  he  was  despised  and  we  esteemed 
him  not.  Surely  he  has  borne  our  griefs,  and  carried 
our  sorrows:  yet  we  did  esteem  him  stricken, 
smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted.  But  he  was  wounded 
for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniqui- 
ties: the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him; 
and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed,"  is  perhaps  the 
grandest  presentation  of  the  atoning  life,  the  Christ 
man,  that  exists  in  literature.  The  ideal  fulfilment 
of  it  was  Jesus,  as  primitive  Christianity  quickly 
saw ;  but  had  the  original  writer  no  specific  example 
in  mind  belonging  to  his  own  day  when  he  wrote? 
To  be  sure  he  had ;  the  case  of  Jeremiah  would  fur- 
nish it  if  no  other.  This  brave  and  faithful  advocate 
of  the  moral  ideal,  after  standing  alone  in  his  resist- 
ance to  the  materialising  tendencies  of  his  time, 
was  scorned  and  hated  by  his  fellow-countrymen, 


THE   AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  197 

flung  into  prison,  beaten,  tortured,  and  probably 
murdered  in  the  end.  He  shared  the  captivity  of 
the  Jews  under  Nebuchadnezzar,  a  captivity  against 
which  he  had  warned  them  in  vain.  "  Despised 
and  rejected  of  men,"  he  died,  but  in  later  days 
his  name  came  to  be  reverenced  as  perhaps  none  had 
ever  been  before.  For  centuries  afterwards  he  was 
referred  to  by  the  returned  exiles  as  the  prophet,  in 
contradistinction  to  all  other  prophets.  He  had 
lived  the  atoning  life  and  died  a  sacrificial  death. 
It  was  not  wonderful  that  the  author  of  the  fifty- 
third  of  Isaiah  should  have  such  a  noble  example 
in  mind  when  he  penned  his  deathless  words,  but 
these  words  were  meant  to  have  an  impersonal 
meaning  too.  They  stand  as  a  description  of  the 
ideal  manhood,  the  true  servant  of  God,  the  saviour 
of  the  race  in  any  and  every  generation.  This 
kind  of  manhood,  just  because  it  is  the  true  man- 
hood, the  eternal  or  divine  manhood,  must  inevitably 
suffer  in  a  selfish  world,  but  these  sufferings  are 
never  in  vain;  they  are  the  Calvary  from  which 
the  eternal  Christ  rises  in  redeeming  might  over  the 
power  of  sin  and  death.  Let  any  man  ask  himself 
what  it  is  that  is  saving  the  world  to-day,  and  gradu- 
ally but  surely  lifting  it  out  of  the  mire  of  ignorance 
and  wickedness,  and  he  cannot  find  a  better  answer 
than  the  fifty-third  of  Isaiah.  It  tells  of  Jesus,  but 
it  tells  also  of  all  the  sons  of  God  who  in  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  have  ever  given  their  lives  in  the  service  of 
love. 


1 98  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

When  we  go  to  the  Bible  in  this  common -sense 
way,  entering  with  understanding  and  sympathy 
into  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the  men  who 
wrote  it,  it  becomes  a  living  book,  and  a  real  help 
in  our  endeavour  to  live  our  lives  in  union  with 
Jesus  Christ.  But  to  regard  it  as  a  sort  of  official 
document  written  by  the  finger  of  God,  of  equal 
authority  in  every  part,  and  containing  a  full  and 
complete  statement  of  the  propositions  we  must 
accept  in  order  to  make  sure  of  salvation,  is  ham- 
pering and  belittling  to  the  soul.  God  inspires 
men,  not  books ;  and  He  will  go  on  inspiring  men  to 
the  end  of  time,  whether  they  write  books  or  not. 
I  do  not  know  anything  which  is  such  a  serious  hin- 
drance and  stumbling-block  to  spiritual  religion 
to-day  as  this  supposed  authority  of  the  letter  of 
scripture.  If  only  the  average  Protestant  could 
emancipate  himself  from  this  intellectual  bondage, 
the  gain  to  truth  would  be  immeasurable.  I  do 
not  suppose  there  is  a  single  man  who  reads  these 
words  who  would  make  light  of  the  religious  opin- 
ions of  a  pious  mother,  but  would  he  allow  them  to 
fetter  him  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  mature  judg- 
ment ?  But  surely  your  own  mother  stands  as  near 
to  you  as  men  who  wrote  centuries  before  she  was 
born.  If  God  spoke  to  the  hearts  of  men  centuries 
ago,  He  can  and  does  speak  to  them  now.  If  He 
spoke  to  Isaiah,  He  can  and  does  speak  to  you.  If 
your  mother's  way  of  stating  truth  is  not  necessarily 
yours,  no  more  is  Paul's.  The  deeper  unity  of  the 


THE  AUTHORITY   OF   SCRIPTURE  199 

spirit  forbids  this  blind  obedience  to  the  letter. 
Therefore,  knowing  quite  well  what  use  hostile 
reviewers  will  make  of  this  sentence,  I  close  by 
solemnly  adding:  Never  mind  what  the  Bible  says 
if  you  are  in  search  for  truth,  but  trust  the  voice  of 
God  within  you.  The  Bible  will  help  you  in  your 
quest,  just  as  any  good  man  might  be  able  to  help 
you ;  but  you  must  judge,  test,  and  weigh  the  various 
statements  it  contains,  just  as  you  would  judge, 
test,  and  weigh  the  opinions  of  the  best  friend  you 
ever  had.  Nothing  can  make  up  for  this  quiet  and 
assured  confidence  in  the  Spirit  of  Truth  within 
your  own  soul.  If  God  is  not  there,  you  will  not 
find  Him  in  the  Bible  or  anywhere  else. 


CHAPTER   XII 

SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,   AND    THE    LIFE    TO    COME 

The  inwardness  of  Salvation  and  Judgment.  — 
We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  a  group  of 
subjects  which  are  usually  treated  in  quite  separate 
categories.  I  mean  the  punishment  of  sin,  the  nature 
and  scope  of  Salvation,  Resurrection  and  Ascension, 
Death,  Judgment,  Heaven  and  Hell.  The  reason  why 
I  feel  that  these  subjects  ought  not  to  be  treated 
in  separate  categories  is  because  they  are  all  de- 
scriptions of  states  of  the  soul  and  imply  each  other; 
they  are  inward,  not  outward,  experiences.  This 
statement  will,  I  trust,  become  clearer  as  we 
proceed. 

So  far  we  have  examined  pretty  thoroughly  the 
nature  of  sin  and  its  effects  in  the  world,  but  have 
said  very  little  as  to  its  penal  consequences,  and  yet 
the  consideration  of  these  consequences  has  been  the 
determining  factor  in  most  of  the  theories  of  Atone- 
ment, ancient  or  modern,  which  have  occupied  the 
field  of  human  thought.  It  is  true,  as  I  have  said, 
that  the  idea  of  Atonement  is  not  necessarily  as- 
sociated with  that  of  sin,  and  actually  precedes  it  both 
historically  and  psychologically,  but  it  cannot  be 
gainsaid  that  in  Christian  thought  the  desirability 

200 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,    THE   LIFE  TO   COME      2OI 

of  finding  some  means  of  escaping  or  minimising 
the  punishment  of  sin  has  tended  to  overshadow 
everything  else  in  popular  presentations  of  the 
Atonement.  But  what  is  the  punishment  of  sin, 
and  who  administers  it?  What  is  the  Judgment 
and  when  does  it  take  effect?  How  does  Salvation 
stand  related  to  punishment  and  judgment?  What 
has  Death  to  do  with  the  matter?  What  are  we  to 
understand  by  Heaven  and  Hell,  and  what  is  the 
bearing  of  either  upon  Salvation  and  Judgment? 
Everyone  knows  how  popular  evangelical  theology 
would  answer  these  questions.  Sin,  we  are  told,  will 
be  punished  in  a  future  life  by  the  committal  of  the 
impenitent  soul  to  everlasting  torment.  Salvation 
is  primarily  a  means  of  escaping  this,  and  secondarily 
being  conformed  gradually  to  the  moral  likeness 
of  the  Saviour.  Judgment  is  a  grand  assize,  which 
will  take  place  when  the  material  world  comes  to  an 
end;  Jesus  Christ  will  be  the  Judge,  and  will  ap- 
portion everlasting  weal  or  woe,  according  as  the 
soul  has  or  has  not  claimed  the  benefit  of  His  re- 
deeming work  in  time  to  profit  by  it.  Death  is  the 
dividing  line  beyond  which  the  destiny  is  fixed  eter- 
nally whether  we  die  old  or  young.  Heaven  is  the 
place  into  which  the  redeemed  enter  —  whether 
after  death  or  after  judgment  has  never  been  clearly 
settled  —  there  to  praise  God  eternally  in  perfect 
happiness;  Hell  is  the  place  of  never  ending  torment 
to  which  unbelievers  are  to  be  consigned. 
Now  it  does  not  require  a  very  profound  intel- 


202  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

ligence  to  see  that  popular  theology  is  a  mass  of 
contradictions  in  regard  to  these  things.  By  eternal 
the  ordinary  Christian  usually  means  everlasting; 
why  should  punishment  be  everlasting?  The  worst 
sin  that  was  ever  sinned  does  not  deserve  everlasting 
punishment,  and  I  have  never  yet  met  the  Christian 
who  would  really  and  truly  be  willing  to  see  a  fellow- 
creature  undergo  it.  There  is  no  understandable 
sense  in  which  justice  could  demand  such  a  terrible 
sentence,  even  if  it  involved  no  more  than  everlasting 
unhappiness ;  how  much  more  unthinkable  it  becomes 
if  the  punishment  is  to  be  everlasting,  fiendish  tor- 
ment! If  Salvation  is  first  and  foremost  deliver- 
ance from  this  punishment,  how  is  it  that  it  does  not 
take  effect  immediately  ?  Justice  would  suggest  that 
it  ought  to  do  so,  for  some  sinners  live  a  merry  life 
until  the  eleventh  hour,  and  then  give  God  "  the  last 
snuff  of  the  candle  "  as  Father  Taylor  put  it,  whereas 
others  repent  early  but  never  manage,  all  through 
a  long  life,  to  escape  the  suffering  caused  by  their 
own  deeds  in  youth.  In  some  cases,  at  any  rate, 
on  this  side  of  the  grave,  Salvation  does  not  involve 
the  least  remission  of  penalty,  while  in  others  ap- 
parently no  penalty  will  ever  be  endured  either  on  this 
side  of  death  or  on  the  other.  The  poor  drunkard 
who  repents  does  not  find  that  repentance  gives  him 
back  his  wrecked  constitution,  but  the  selfish,  grasp- 
ing, cruel-hearted  wrecker  of  homes  and  lives  may 
just  be  in  time  with  his  trust  in  the  "  finished  work," 
and  go  right  home  to  glory  while  his  victims  struggle 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   THE   LIFE  TO   COME      203 

and  suffer  on  amid  the  conditions  he  has  made  for 
them  on  earth.  Curious  justice  this ! 

Christian  thought  never  quite  consistent  about 
Death  and  after.  — There  is  no  need  to  labour  the 
point;  popular  evangelical  views  of  the  punishment 
of  sin  are  incredible  when  looked  at  in  a  common- 
sense  way.  But  they  are  even  more  chaotic  on  the 
subject  of  death  and  whatever  follows  death.  It  does 
not  seem  to  be  generally  recognised  that  Christian 
thought  has  never  been  really  clear  concerning  the 
Resurrection,  especially  in  relation  to  future  judg- 
ment. One  view  has  been  that  the  deceased  saint 
lies  sleeping  in  the  grave  until  the  archangel's  trump 
shall  sound  and  bid  all  mankind  awake  for  the  great 
assize.  Anyone  who  reads  the  New  Testament 
without  prejudice  will  see  that  this  was  Paul's 
earlier  view,  although  later  on  he  changed  it  for 
another.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  our  current,  every- 
day religious  phraseology  which  presumes  it  still  — 

"  Father,  in  thy  gracious  keeping 
Leave  we  now  thy  servant  sleeping." 

But  alongside  this  view  another  which  is  a  flagrant 
contradiction  of  it  has  come  down  to  us,  namely, 
that  immediately  after  death  the  soul  goes  straight 
to  heaven  or  hell,  as  the  case  may  be,  without  waiting 
for  the  archangel's  trump  and  the  grand  assize. 
On  the  whole  this  is  the  dominant  theory  of  the  situ- 
ation in  Protestant  circles,  and  is  much  less  reason- 
able than  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  purgatory,  however 


204  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

much  the  latter  may  have  been  abused.  But  under 
this  view  what  is  the  exact  significance  of  the  Judg- 
ment Day  and  the  physical  Resurrection?  One 
would  think  they  might  be  accounted  superfluous. 
What  is  the  good  of  tormenting  a  soul  in  hell  for 
ages  and  then  whirling  it  back  to  the  body  hi  order 
to  rise  again  and  receive  a  solemn  public  condemna- 
tion ?  Better  leave  it  in  the  Inferno  and  save  trouble, 
especially  as  the  solemn  trial  is  meaningless,  seeing 
that  a  part  of  the  sentence  has  already  been  under- 
gone, and  that  there  is  no  hope  that  any  portion  of 
it  will  ever  be  remitted.  Truly  the  tender  mercies 
with  which  theologians  have  credited  the  Almighty 
are  cruel  indeed!  It  is  difficult  to  speak  with  pa- 
tience of  the  solemn,  non-committal  way  in  which 
many  present-day  theological  writers  discuss  ever- 
lasting punishment.  Many  of  them  have  an  "open 
mind"  on  the  subject,  whatever  that  may  be,  and 
warn  the  rest  of  us  not  to  dogmatise  on  the  great 
mystery.  It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  them  that  the 
Christian  fundamental  of  the  love  of  God  renders 
the  dogma  of  everlasting  punishment  impossible,  for 
it  implies  that  God  will  do  the  most  for  the  being  that 
needs  the  most,  and  surely  that  must  be  the  most 
unhappy  sinner.  Others  speak  of  a  "  larger  hope," 
a  second  opportunity  for  accepting  divine  grace,  and 
so  on.  But  these  theories  do  not  meet  the  case  at 
all.  While  sin  remains  in  the  universe,  God  is  de- 
feated; everlasting  punishment  involves  His  ever- 
lasting failure.  How  often  we  hear  preachers 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,    THE   LIFE  TO   COME      205 

speaking  about  the  obdurate  human  will,  which  to  all 
eternity  may  go  on  resisting  good.  There  are  not 
a  few  who  defend  the  abstract  possibility  of  ever- 
lasting punishment  by  insisting  that  it  is  impossible 
to  coerce  the  will,  and  therefore  that  to  endless  ages 
a  soul  may  go  on  choosing  evil  and  rejecting  good. 
But  this  is  an  entirely  new  argument;  it  implies  that 
a  sinner  might  choose  the  good  on  the  other  side  of 
death,  and  that  if  he  does  not  he  continues  eternally 
to  pass  sentence  upon  himself,  God  being  helpless  in 
the  matter.  This  is  not  the  way  in  which  advocates 
of  everlasting  punishment  used  to  talk.  It  is  a  little 
more  hopeful  than  the  conventional  dogma,  for 
it  makes  the  sinner  to  some  extent  his  own  judge 
and  executioner,  and  places  stress  on  the  undoubted 
truth  that  if  a  man  keeps  on  doing  wrong  things 
he  becomes  hardened.  I  have  heard  this  view 
defended  in  private  by  a  bishop,  who  apparently 
never  saw  that  in  adopting  it  he  had  given  up  entirely 
the  orthodox  Protestant  view  that  there  is  no  chance 
for  a  man  after  death,  and  that  the  thing  which 
determines  our  post-mortem  destiny  is  not  our  con- 
duct, but  our  belief.  Repentance  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  however  bad  the  previous  life  may  have  been, 
is,  according  to  the  theology  of  this  particular  bishop, 
enough  to  secure  admission  to  heaven.  If,  therefore, 
a  power  of  eternally  choosing  evil  remains  on  the 
further  side  of  the  great  change,  surely  there  is  some 
hope  that  that  power  might  not  continue  to  be 
exercised.  But  if  not,  what  becomes  of  the  whole 


206  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

fabric  of  popular  Protestant  theology  concerning 
the  plan  of  salvation,  the  Judgment  Day,  and  the 
atoning  merits  of  the  Redeemer? 

No,  this  kind  of  incoherent  theologising  will  not 
do.  No  one  really  believes  it,  and  the  churches 
will  have  to  give  up  professing  to  believe  it.  In  our 
ordinary  everyday  concerns  we  take  quite  a  different 
view  for  granted  all  the  time,  the  view  that  "  What- 
soever a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap."  The 
harvest  may  be  long  in  coming,  but  it  comes  at  last. 
Neither  do  we  choose  our  friends  on  account  of  their 
chances  of  heaven  or  hell.  We  like  or  dislike  a  man 
because  he  deserves  to  be  liked  or  disliked,  and  not 
because  he  believes  something  that  will  get  him  into 
heaven.  Neither,  thank  God,  do  we  want  to  see 
even  the  wicked  left  to  the  consequences  of  their 
wickedness;  we  want  to  see  them  helped  to  live  dif- 
ferently, and  it  is  hardly  probable  that  this  impulse 
of  our  better  humanity  will  change  after  death. 
Love  cannot  be  false  to  itself;  in  the  presence  of 
need  it  must  of  necessity  keep  on  giving  itself  until 
the  need  is  satisfied  and  the  victory  won. 

But  if  popular  theology  concerning  the  last  things 
is  untrue,  or  at  least  misleading  and  inadequate, 
what  is  the  truth?  Do  we  want  a  different  set  of 
terms  or  not  ?  I  think  not,  but  we  want  a  different 
perspective.  These  terms  ought  to  be  construed  as 
states  of  the  soul,  rather  than  as  external  conditions. 
Let  me  try  to  explain  what  I  mean. 

The  true  Salvation.  —  In  the  first  place  if  sin  is 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,    THE   LIFE   TO   COME      207 

selfishness,  salvation  must  consist  in  ceasing  to  be 
selfish,  that  is,  it  represents  the  victory  of  love  in  the 
human  heart.  This  may  be  represented  as  the  up- 
rising of  the  deeper  self,  the  true  man,  the  Christ 
man  in  the  experience  of  the  penitent.  We  may 
even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  this  can  come  about,  and 
does  come  about,  without  any  strongly  marked  feel- 
ings of  contrition  or  sudden  change  of  attitude. 
Wherever  you  see  a  man  trying  to  do  something  for 
the  common  good,  you  see  the  uprising  of  the  spirit 
of  Christ;  what  he  is  doing  is  a  part  of  the  Atone- 
ment. In  church  or  out  of  church,  with  or  without 
a  formal  creed,  this  is  the  true  way  in  which  the 
redemption  of  the  world  is  proceeding.  Every 
man  who  is  trying  to  live  so  as  to  make  his  life  a 
blessing  to  the  world  is  being  saved  himself  in  the 
process,  saved  by  becoming  a  saviour.  Ordinary 
observation  ought  to  tell  us  that  untold  thousands 
of  our  fellow-beings,  even  among  those  who  never 
dream  of  going  to  church,  are  being  saved  in  this 
way.  This  is  the  true  way  to  look  at  the  matter. 
The  Christ,  the  true  Christ  who  was  and  is  Jesus,  but 
who  is  also  the  deeper  self  of  every  human  being, 
is  saving  individuals  by  filling  them  with  the  unself- 
ish desire  to  save  the  race.  It  is  this  unselfish  desire 
to  minister  to  the  common  good  which  is  the  true 
salvation.  I  do  not  mind  what  name  is  given  to  it  so 
long  as  it  is  recognised  for  what  it  really  is ;  there  is 
no  stopping-place  between  sinner  and  saviour.  This 
is  the  way  in  which  men  like  Robert  Blatchford  of 


208  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

the  Clarion  are  being  saved  while  trying  to  save. 
Conceive  how  differently  such  a  man  might  have 
lived  his  life.  He  might  have  lived  it  so  as  to  be  of 
no  use  to  anyone,  or  indeed  in  such  a  way  as  to  be 
a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help  to  poor  overburdened 
humanity.  It  matters  comparatively  little  that  this 
man  should  think  he  is  destroying  supernaturalism 
and  scoffs  at  the  possibility  of  a  future  life.  His 
moral  earnestness  is  a  mark  of  his  Christhood  and 
his  work  a  part  of  the  Atonement.  Not  another 
Christ  than  Jesus,  mind!  The  very  same.  Mr. 
Blatchford  may  laugh  at  this  and  call  his  moral 
aspirations  by  quite  a  different  name.  Well,  let 
him;  but  I  know  the  thing  when  I  see  it.  This  is 
Salvation. 

Conversion.  —  But  in  the  history  of  mankind  the 
change  from  selfishness  to  love,  from  darkness  to 
light,  from  death  to  life,  has  often  meant  something 
much  more  pronounced  than  this.  A  man  may  have 
been  living  a  bad  life,  and  become  suddenly  impressed 
by  some  appeal  to  his  better  nature  made  in  the 
name  of  God.  He  may  have  felt  humiliated  and 
distressed  by  his  new-found  consciousness  of  sin. 
He  may  have  prayed  earnestly  for  forgiveness,  and 
felt  that  forgiveness  has  come  and  that  the  peace 
of  God  has  entered  into  and  possessed  his  soul. 
He  has  deliberately  and  solemnly  consecrated  his 
life  to  Jesus  and  feels  that  henceforth  he  is,  as  it 
were,  in  a  new  world.  This  change  is  rightly  termed 
conversion,  a  turning  round  and  going  right.  Such 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   THE  LIFE  TO   COME     209 

a  man  may  be  able  to  say  with  St.  Paul,  "To  me 
to  live  is  Christ,"  and  the  words  would  be  literally 
and  grandly  true.  After  this  he  may  go  on  believing 
all  kinds  of  things  about  verbal  inspiration,  the  pre- 
cious blood,  the  fate  of  the  impenitent,  and  I  know 
not  what  else,  but  the  quality  of  the  new  life  is  al- 
ways the  same;  it  is  dominated  by  the  spirit  of  love 
instead  of  the  spirit  of  selfishness;  it  is  harmony 
with  God.  Often  this  change  is  very  complete  and 
beautiful,  but  in  every  case  it  involves  a  long  and 
slow  ascent  to  the  stature  of  the  perfect  man  in 
Christ  Jesus.  It  is  no  delusion,  either,  that  hi  the 
endeavour  to  live  the  new  life  divine  help  is  forth- 
coming. The  Holy  Spirit  of  truth  and  love  is  ever 
present  with  a  child  of  God  to  guide  him  to  higher 
and  ever  higher  heights  of  spiritual  attainment. 
Without  this  blessed  religious  experience,  the  expe- 
rience of  those  who  are  "  called  to  be  saints,"  this 
world  would  be  a  poor  place  to  live  in.  I  may  per- 
haps be  pardoned  for  adding  that  in  my  judgment 
even  the  earnest  redemptive  endeavours  of  men  like 
the  editor  of  the  Clarion  have  indirectly  been  made 
possible  by  it.  Take  out  of  the  world  what  Chris- 
tian saints  have  owed  to  their  fellowship  with  Jesus, 
and  there  would  be  very  little  of  hope  and  inspiration 
left.  Still,  what  I  want  to  emphasise  here  is  the 
fact  that,  however  crude  the  various  theologies  may 
have  been  in  which  this  experience  has  clothed  it- 
self,  it  is  always  the  same;  it  represents  the  victory 
of  love  in  the  human  heart. 


210  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

Salvation  and  penalty.  —  But  does  this  kind  of 
salvation  do  away  with  the  penal  consequences  of 
past  sin?  If  not,  what  is  its  relation  to  them?  To 
answer  these  questions  we  must  look  a  little  more 
closely  into  the  nature  of  such  penal  consequences. 
Perhaps  it  would  help  to  clear  up  the  subject  if 
I  were  to  say  frankly  before  going  any  farther  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  punishment,  no  far-off 
Judgment  Day,  no  great  white  throne,  and  no  Judge 
external  to  ourselves.  I  say  there  is  no  punishment 
of  sin  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  "punishment" 
is  usually  employed.  We  are  accustomed  to  think 
of  punishment  as  a  sentence  imposed  by  some  au- 
thority from  without  and  containing  within  itself  some 
element  of  vengeance  for  wrong-doing.  But  in  the 
divine  dealings  with  men  such  punishment  has  never 
existed  and  never  will.  What  has  already  been 
said  in  a  previous  chapter  on  the  subject  of  pain 
should  help  to  make  this  statement  plain.  We  have 
seen  that  pain  is  life  pressing  upon  death  and  death 
resisting  life.  If  there  were  no  life,  there  would  be 
no  pain.  We  may  say  therefore  that  pain  is  life, 
or  some  finite  expression  of  the  universal  life,  seeking 
to  burst  through  something  that  fetters  and  hinders 
it.  Apply  this  to  the  region  of  morals  and  let  us  see 
how  it  works  out.  If  a  man  has  been  living  for  self, 
he  has  been  making  a  mistake  and  preparing  for 
himself  a  harvest  of  pain,  for  sooner  or  later  the  divine 
life  within  him,  the  truer,  deeper  self,  will  assert 
itself  against  the  decisive  efforts  of  sin.  It  is  just 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   THE  LIFE  TO   COME     211 

as  impossible  for  a  man  to  go  on  eternally  living 
apart  from  the  universal  life  as  it  is  for  a  sand  castle 
to  shut  out  the  ocean;  the  returning  tide  would 
break  down  the  puny  barriers  and  destroy  everything 
that  tends  to  separate  between  the  soul  and  God. 
For,  after  all,  what  is  our  life  but  God's?  To  try 
to  keep  it  for  ourselves  is  like  trying  to  catch  and 
imprison  a  sun  ray  by  drawing  the  blinds.  To  save 
the  self  we  must  serve  the  All.  When,  therefore, 
we  remember  that  the  spirit  of  man  and  the  spirit 
of  God  are  one,  we  know  of  a  surety  that  the  infinite 
life  behind  the  human  spirit  will  assert  itself  ir- 
resistibly against  the  endeavours  of  sin  to  enclose  that 
spirit  within  finite  conditions.  The  essence  of  sin 
is  the  declaration,  "Mine  is  not  thine,  and  I  shall 
live  for  mine  alone."  This  is  trying  to  live  for  the 
finite;  it  is  enclosing  the  soul  within  barriers;  those 
barriers  must  be  broken  if  the  soul  is  to  be  saved, 
and  broken  they  will  be  just  because  the  deeper 
self  of  every  man  is  already  one  with  God.  In  the 
stable-yard  of  my  house  there  was  at  one  time  a 
tree,  which  was  cut  down  and  the  place  where  it  grew 
covered  with  flagstones  and  a  wall  built  round  it. 
But  the  roots  of  the  tree  were  not  removed,  and 
so  that  buried  life  has  reasserted  itself,  the  flag- 
stones have  been  shattered,  and  now  the  wall  is 
coming  down.  Here  is  a  figure  of  our  moral  ex- 
perience. A  man  may  go  on  living  for  self  all 
through  a  long  career;  he  may  bury  his  better 
nature  deep  underneath  the  hard  shell  of  material- 


212  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

ism  and  self-indulgence,  but  it  is  all  in  vain;  sooner 
or  later,  on  this  side  of  death  or  on  the  other,  that 
buried  life  shall  rise  in  power  and  all  barriers  be 
swept  away.  This  uprising  of  the  Christ  in  the 
individual  soul,  for  such  it  is,  must  inevitably  mean 
pain  to  the  man  whose  true  life  has  been  entombed 
in  selfishness.  The  pain  may  begin  here  or  on  the 
farther  side  of  the  change  called  death,  but  it  is 
itself  not  a  mark  of  death,  but  of  life.  The  fact  that 
a  soul  can  suffer  proves  its  salvability  beyond  dis- 
pute. An  everlasting  hell  is  in  the  nature  of  things 
a  contradiction,  for  the  finite  cannot  eternally  bar 
the  way  of  the  infinite  reality  whose  uprising  is  the 
cause  of  its  pain ;  if  it  could,  it  would  itself  be  infinite, 
which  is  absurd.  Sin  is  essentially  the  endeavour 
to  live  for  the  finite,  the  separative,  the  divisive,  as 
opposed  to  the  infinite,  the  whole-ward,  the  All. 
Which  will  win  in  this  encounter  ? 

The  real  judge.  —  And  who,  pray,  is  the  judge  ? 
Who  but  yourself?  The  deeper  self  is  the  judge, 
the  self  who  is  eternally  one  with  God.  The  pain 
caused  by  sin  arises  from  the  soul,  which  is  potentially 
infinite  and  cannot  have  its  true  nature  denied. 
If  you  go  and  live  over  a  sewer,  you  will  be  ill.  Why  ? 
Because  you  were  never  meant  to  live  over  a  sewer. 
The  evil  therein  attacks  you,  and  the  life  within  you 
fights  to  overcome  it,  and  in  the  process  you  have 
to  suffer.  It  is  just  the  same  with  your  spiritual 
nature.  You  cannot  continue  to  live  apart  from  the 
whole,  for  the  real  you  is  the  whole,  and,  do  what 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,   THE  LIFE  TO   COME     213 

you  will,  it  will  overcome  everything  within  you 
that  makes  for  separateness,  and  in  the  process 
you  will  have  to  suffer.  This  is  what  the  punish- 
ment of  sin  means.  It  is  life  battling  with  death, 
love  striving  against  selfishness,  the  deeper  soul 
with  the  surface  soul.  It  is  our  own  spiritual  nature 
that  compels  us  to  suffer  when  we  sin,  and  there  is 
no  escaping  the  sentence;  if  we  sin  we  must  suffer, 
for  we  are  so  constituted  that  what  sin  does,  love 
with  toil  and  pain  must  undo.  No  eleventh-hour 
repentance  can  evade  this  issue;  in  fact,  it  may  be 
the  beginning  of  it.  If  we  have  been  treading  a 
wrong  road,  repentance  is  turning  round  and  taking 
the  way  back.  If  we  have  been  living  a  false  life, 
repentance  is  the  beginning  of  the  true,  and  just  in 
proportion  as  the  false  has  been  accepted,  so  will 
the  true  find  it  difficult  to  destroy  the  lie.  You  are 
the  judge ;  you  in  God.  If  you  have  failed  to  achieve 
that  for  which  you  are  here,  you  will  have  to  achieve 
it  here  or  elsewhere,  and  the  correction  of  your 
failure  will  inevitably  mean  pain. 

"  The  tissues  of  the  life  to  be, 
We  weave  with  colours  all  our  own; 
And  in  the  field  of  destiny 
We  reap  as  we  have  sown." 

There  is  nothing  horrific  about  this  law  of  the 
spirit.  In  a  true  and  real  sense  it  is  our  own  law; 
ive  make  it.  Being  what  we  are,  we  cannot  let  our- 
selves off.  Pain  is  at  once  the  consequence  of  sin 


214  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

and  the  token  of  our  divine  lineage.  But  there  is 
nothing  individualistic  about  this  sinning  and 
suffering.  All  the  love  in  the  universe  comes  to 
the  help  of  the  soul  that  tries  to  rise.  It  will  even 
enter  the  prison  house  along  with  it  and  accept 
the  cross  in  the  endeavour  to  hasten  the  emancipation 
of  the  sinbound  soul.  In  fact,  it  must  do  so,  for 
as  long  as  there  is  any  sin  to  be  done  away,  love 
cannot  have  its  perfect  work.  This  it  was  which 
brought  Jesus  to  earth,  and  this  it  is  which  turns 
every  follower  of  Jesus  into  a  saviour.  Love  must 
strive  and  suffer  with  sin  until  God  is  all  in  all. 

The  spiritual  resurrection.  —  It  follows  from 
this  that  the  true  resurrection  is  spiritual,  not  mate- 
rial, and  this  is  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  most 
frequently  employed  in  the  New  Testament.  In 
the  fourth  gospel  Jesus  is  represented  as  saying, 
"  I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life :  he  that  believ- 
eth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live :  and 
he  that  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall  never  die." 
This  is  a  great  saying,  and  the  writer  of  this  par- 
ticular gospel  meant  every  word  of  it  in  the  sense  I 
have  just  indicated.  He  makes  the  eternal  Christ 
the  speaking  terms  of  the  earthly  Jesus  and  tells  us 
that  the  uprising  of  this  eternal  Christ  within  the 
soul  of  the  penitent  sinner  is  the  real  resurrection. 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus.  —  But  this  subject 
of  the  resurrection  demands  a  further  examination. 
We  have  already  seen  how  inconsistent  popular 
Christian  doctrine  is  about  the  matter,  and  yet 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   THE   LIFE  TO   COME     215 

Christianity  started  with  the  belief  in  a  resurrection 
of  our  Lord,  a  belief  which  has  continued  down  to 
the  present  day.  What  are  we  to  say  about  this? 
We  may  as  well  admit  at  the  outset  that  the  gospel 
accounts  of  the  physical  resurrection  of  Jesus  are 
mutually  inconsistent  and  that  no  amount  of  in- 
genuity can  reconcile  them.  Matthew  speaks  of  a 
Galilean  appearance,  and  says  nothing  about  the 
ascension.  Luke  says  a  great  deal  about  the 
Jerusalem  appearances,  nothing  about  Galilee,  and 
tells  us  that  the  ascension  took  place  from  Bethany. 
The  end  of  St.  Mark's  gospel  has  been  lost,  and  the 
last  few  verses  are  a  summary  of  the  accounts  in 
the  other  gospels  concerning  the  post-resurrection 
appearances  of  the  Lord.  John's  version  is,  of 
course,  less  historical  than  the  synoptists,  and  puts 
the  last  appearance  at  the  sea  of  Tiberias.  A  minute 
discussion  of  the  problem  thus  raised  would  be 
unprofitable  for  our  present  purpose,  but  I  hope 
we  can  take  for  granted  the  broad  fact  that  without 
a  belief  in  a  resurrection  of  some  kind  Christianity 
could  not  have  made  a  start  at  all.  It  is  almost 
indisputable  that  in  some  way  or  other  the  dis- 
ciples must  have  become  convinced  that  they  had 
seen  Jesus  face  to  face  after  the  world  believed 
Him  to  be  dead  and  buried.  The  earliest  apostolic 
utterance  on  the  subject  in  the  New  Testament 
is  the  familiar  passage  from  i  Cor.  xv:  "For  I 
delivered  unto  you  first  of  all  that  which  I  also 
received,  how  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins  accord- 


2l6  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

ing  to  the  scriptures;  And  that  he  was  buried,  and 
that  he  rose  again  the  third  day  according  to  the 
scriptures:  And  that  he  was  seen  by  Cephas,  then 
of  the  twelve:  After  that  he  was  seen  of  above  five 
hundred  brethren  at  once;  of  whom  the  greater 
part  remain  unto  this  present,  but  some  are  fallen 
asleep.  After  that  he  was  seen  of  James;  then  of 
all  the  apostles.  And  last  of  all  he  was  seen  of  me 
also,  as  of  one  born  out  of  due  time."  This  state- 
ment is  clear  enough  and  almost  unquestionably 
authentic.  It  places  beyond  doubt  what  the  apos- 
tolic church  thought  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 
The  little  group  of  disciples  must  somehow  have 
become  convinced  that  their  Master  was  not  really 
dead,  but  alive  and  reigning  in  the  world  unseen, 
interested  as  much  as  ever  in  the  work  His  followers 
were  doing,  and  spiritually  present  with  them  in 
the  doing  of  it.  This  conviction  had  immediate 
and  important  spiritual  results.  It  gave  these  simple 
men  a  new  and  greater  confidence  in  Jesus  and  in 
the  power  of  the  life  He  had  lived.  They  saw  that 
this  life  was,  after  all,  the  strongest  thing  in  the  uni- 
verse. They  realised  that  in  the  end  nothing  could 
stand  against  them;  evil  could  do  it  no  real  harm, 
for  God  was  behind  it.  Even  before  the  crucifixion 
they  had  looked  upon  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  in  a 
higher  and  more  spiritual  sense  than  that  title  had 
been  used  before,  but  now  henceforth  they  thought 
of  Him  as  such  in  a  higher  way  still.  According  to 
Paul  He  was  "  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,  THE  LITE  TO   COME     217 

power  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead."  If  we 
try  to  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  these  first  Chris- 
tians, we  shall  realise  better  the  effect  of  the  resur- 
rection upon  their  feelings  and  behaviour.  Let  us 
suppose  that  we  had  known  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  that 
we  had  learned  to  understand  a  little  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual  beauty  of  the  ideal  revealed  in  His  life, 
and  that  afterward  we  had  seen  Him  die  in  blood 
and  shame;  I  think  it  would  have  taken  a  good  deal 
to  convince  us  that  evil  had  not  gained  the  day. 
Now  suppose  after  this  we  had  absolute  proof  — 
I  will  not  say  how  —  that  our  Master  was  still  alive, 
and  that  His  spirit  was  with  us  and  helping  us, 
would  it  not  make  a  very  great  difference  to  our 
outlook  upon  life  and  our  confidence  in  God?  We 
could  not  but  feel  the  littleness  of  the  power  that 
had  tried  to  destroy  Jesus,  and  we  should  not  be 
afraid  of  it  any  more.  This  is  precisely  what  ap- 
pears to  have  happened  in  the  experience  of  these 
Galileans.  Defeat  and  failure  were  somehow  turned 
into  victory  and  success;  they  had  seen  Jesus  again. 
Theories  of  resurrection.  —  But  how  are  we  to 
account  for  this  new-found  confidence  of  theirs 
that  they  had  really  once  more  looked  upon  the  face 
of  Jesus?  The  subject  has  been  discussed  so  ex- 
haustively that  no  possible  explanation  of  it  has  been 
left  altogether  untouched.  Such  a  unique  event  as 
the  raising  of  a  physical  body  from  death  is  one 
which  the  average  western  mind  of  the  present  day 
would  reject  as  incredible  if  we  had  never  heard 


21 8  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

it  before,  consequently  there  exists  a  widespread 
tendency  among  liberal  Christians  to  try  to  account 
for  primitive  Christian  belief  in  the  resurrection  of 
our  Lord  in  some  other  way.  Thus  we  have  the 
hallucination  theory,  the  apparition  theory,  the 
swoon  theory,  and  others  of  a  similar  character.  I 
should  suppose  that  most  thinkers  who  take  the 
point  of  view  of  the  New  Theology  would  hold  one 
or  other  of  these  explanations  or  some  modification 
of  them,  but  I  confess  I  have  never  been  able  to  do 
so.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  such  explanation  of  the 
universally  held  Christian  conviction  that  the  physi- 
cal body  of  Jesus  actually  rose  from  the  tomb  is 
sufficient  to  account  for  it.  The  passage  already 
quoted  from  i  Cor.  xv  is  alone  enough  to  illustrate 
this  statement.  It  is  clear  that  the  earliest  Chris- 
tians were  absolutely  certain  that  the  body  of  Jesus 
after  the  resurrection  was  the  body  of  Jesus  as  they 
had  known  it  before,  although  apparently  it  pos- 
sessed some  new  and  mysterious  attributes.  In 
my  judgment,  also,  insistence  upon  the  impossibility 
of  a  physical  resurrection  presumes  an  essential 
distinction  between  matter  and  spirit  which  I  cannot 
admit.  The  philosophy  underlying  the  New  The- 
ology as  I  understand  it  is  monistic  idealism, 
and  monistic  idealism  recognises  no  fundamental 
distinction  between  matter  and  spirit.  The  funda- 
mental reality  is  consciousness.  The  so-called  ma- 
terial world  is  the  product  of  consciousness  exer- 
cising itself  along  a  certain  limited  plane;  the  next 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,   THE   LIFE   TO   COME      219 

stage  of  consciousness  above  this  is  not  an  absolute 
break  with  it,  although  it  is  an  expansion  of  expe- 
rience or  readjustment  of  focus.  Admitting  that 
individual  self-consciousness  persists  beyond  the 
change  called  death,  it  only  means  that  such  con- 
sciousness is  being  exercised  along  another  plane; 
from  a  three-dimensional  it  has  entered  a  four- 
dimensional  world.  This  new  world  is  no  less  and 
no  more  material  than  the  present;  it  is  all  a  ques- 
tion of  the  range  of  consciousness.  It  is  this  view, 
the  view  that  matter  exists  only  in  and  for  mind,  that 
leads  me  to  believe  that  less  than  justice  has  been 
done  by  liberal  thinkers  to  the  theory  of  the  physical 
resurrection  of  Jesus.  What  is  the  physical  but  the 
common  denominator  between  one  finite  mind  and 
another  ?  It  is  a  mode  of  language,  an  .expression 
of  thought  as  well  as  a  condition  of  thought.  Imag- 
ine a  being  free  of  a  three-dimensional  world  trying 
to  converse  with  a  being  still  limited  to  a  two- 
dimensional  world,  and  we  have  a  clew  to  what  I 
think  may  have  happened  after  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus.  The  three-dimensional  body  would  be- 
have in  a  manner  altogether  unaccountable  to  the 
two-dimensional  watcher.  The  latter,  knowing  only 
length  and  breadth,  and  nothing  of  up  or  down, 
would  see  his  three-dimensional  friend  as  a  line 
only.  The  moment  the  three-dimensional  solid 
rose  above  or  sank  below  his  line  of  vision,  it  would 
seem  to  have  disappeared  like  an  apparition,  al- 
though as  really  present  as  before.  To  the  two- 


220  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

dimensional  mind  it  would  seem  as  though  the  solid 
were  a  ghost.  Does  this  throw  any  light  upon  the 
mysterious  appearances  and  disappearances  of  the 
body  of  Jesus?  The  all-important  thing  after 
Calvary  was  to  make  the  disciples  aware,  beyond 
all  dispute,  that  Jesus  was  really  alive,  more  alive 
than  ever,  and  that  His  murderers  had  been  helpless 
to  destroy  Him.  When  we  remember  that  to  the 
ordinary  Jewish  mind  the  thought  of  personal 
immortality  was  anything  but  clear,  and  that  to 
many  of  them  death  was  synonymous  with  anni- 
hilation, we  can  see  how  enormous  was  the  change 
that  had  to  be  wrought  hi  the  mental  attitude  of 
those  who  had  seen  Jesus  die  a  violent  and  bloody 
death.  To  see  Him  return  triumphant  was  the  one 
thing  required  to  counteract  their  feeling  that  all 
was  lost,  and  the  best  means  of  demonstrating  this 
victory  over  death  was  to  enable  them  to  behold 
Him  in  the  body  with  which  they  were  already 
familiar  and  which  they  loved  so  well.  For,  after 
all,  that  body  was  but  a  thought-form,  a  kind  of 
language,  a  mode  of  communication  between  mind 
and  mind;  it  was  no  more  and  no  less  a  thought-form 
than  an  apparition  would  have  been,  and,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  monistic  idealism,  it  is  no  more 
difficult  to  believe  in  the  reanimation  of  a  physical 
body  than  in  the  use  of  any  other  thought-form  to 
express  a  fact  of  consciousness.  Here,  then,  we  have 
a  being  whose  consciousness  belongs  to  the  fourth- 
dimensional  plane  adjusting  Himself  to  the  capac- 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   THE  LIFE  TO   COME      221 

ity  of  those  on  a  three-dimensional  plane  for  the 
sake  of  proving  to  them  beyond  dispute  that  — 

"  Life  is  ever  lord  of  death, 
And  love  can  never  love  its  own." 

This  seems  to  me  the  most  reasonable  explanation 
of  the  post-resurrection  appearances  of  Jesus,  and 
the  impression  produced  by  them  on  the  minds  of 
His  disciples.  Most  of  my  New  Theology  friends 
will  probably  reject  it  at  first  sight,  but  at  least  it 
is  consistent  with  the  philosophic  position  assumed 
throughout  this  book,  and  seems  to  me  to  present 
fewer  difficulties  than  any  other  in  face  of  the  New 
Testament  accounts.  But  no  theory  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  is  absolutely  indispensable  or  of  first- 
rate  importance;  the  main  thing  to  be  agreed  upon 
is  that  Christianity  started  with  the  belief  that  its 
Founder  had  risen  from  the  dead  in  order  to  demon- 
strate that  death  has  no  power  to  destroy  anything 
worthy  of  God.  In  consonance  with  this  idealistic 
view  of  the  subject  the  ascension  becomes  under- 
standable; it  simply  means  that  when  Jesus  had 
done  what  He  wanted,  the  body  was  dissipated. 
No  doubt  primitive  Christian  thought  naively  re- 
garded heaven  as  a  place  above  the  sky  to  which 
the  physical  body  actually  went,  and  Hades,  or  the 
under-world,  as  the  place  from  which  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  returned  to  reanimate  it  before  ascending 
to  the  abode  of  the  Father.  Plainly  enough  this 
is  what  Paul  thought  about  it,  but  such  a  conception 


222  THE   NEW   THEOLOGY 

is  now  impossible  to  anyone;  it  could  only  exist 
under  a  geocentric  view  of  the  universe  which  has 
long  since  passed  away.  But  when  Paul  speaks 
even  about  the  resurrection  of  the  saints,  this  is 
what  he  means.  All  the  good  who  have  died  are 
waiting  in  the  under-world,  the  shadowy  home 
of  the  departed,  in  a  state  of  existence  which 
is  only  a  sort  of  dream  or  sleep  compared  with 
that  which  they  have  left.  From  this  under-world 
Jesus  returned,  "  the  first-fruits  of  them  that  slept." 
All  who  believe  hi  Him  will  do  the  same  sooner  or 
later,  will  resume  their  physical  bodies,  and,  like 
Him,  ascend  to  the  world  above  the  sky.  But  seeing 
this  geocentric  cosmogony  has  been  impossible  for 
centuries  past,  why  should  we  go  on  trying  to  squeeze 
Paul's  language  so  as  to  mean  something  else  than 
what  it  meant  at  first?  Granted  that  he  was  right 
in  believing,  in  company  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
primitive  church,  that  Jesus  showed  Himself  to  the 
disciples  after  His  crucifixion,  what  more  do  we  need  ? 
Paul's  theory  as  to  the  resurrection  of  every  physical 
body  is  just  nonsense  in  the  light  of  our  larger 
knowledge  of  the  universe  and  its  laws,  and  we  may 
as  well  say  so. 

Paul's  mystical  view  of  resurrection.  —  But  we 
should  do  Paul  an  injustice  if  we  were  to  limit  the 
value  of  his  utterances  by  his  views  about  the  resur- 
rection of  the  human  body.  I  have  already  pointed 
out  that  Paul  employs  physical  symbols  in  a  mys- 
tical way,  and  in  nothing  was  this  more  so  than  in 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,   THE  LIFE   TO   COME      223 

his  use  of  the  idea  of  a  resurrection.  With  him, 
as  with  the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel,  the  spiritual 
resurrection  was  the  uprising,  going-forward,  issu- 
ing-forth,  of  the  Christ  or  divine  man  within  the  soul. 
When  he  speaks  in  this  way  he  allows  the  thought 
of  a  physical  resurrection  to  drop  out  of  sight. 
Thus  he  writes :  "  If  we  have  been  planted  together 
in  the  likeness  of  His  death,  we  shall  be  also  in  the 
likeness  of  His  resurrection."  "That  I  may  know 
Him  and  the  power  of  His  resurrection,  and  the 
fellowship  of  His  sufferings,  being  made  conform- 
able unto  His  death;  if  by  any  means  I  might  attain 
unto  the  resurrection  of  the  dead."  "  If  then  ye 
be  risen  with  Christ  seek  the  things  which  are  above, 
where  Christ  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God.  .  .  . 
For  ye  died,  and  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God." 
Even  if  this  last  sentence  is  not  Paul's  own  it  has 
a  distinctly  Pauline  ring.  In  his  maturer  thought 
the  great  apostle  seems  to  have  escaped  the  limita- 
tions of  his  early  Pharisaism.  He  ceases  to  speak 
of  the  sleep  or  the  under-world,  and  begins  to  think 
of  death  as  the  gateway  to  the  immediate  presence 
of  his  dearly  loved  Master.  "  For  I  long  to  depart 
and  to  be  with  Christ  which  is  far  better."  Here, 
surely,  we  are  listening  to  the  voice  of  Paul  the  aged. 
The  moment  we  succeed  in  disentangling  ourselves 
from  all  literal  and  limiting  New  Testament  state- 
ments about  the  connection  between  sin  and  physi- 
cal death,  the  physical  resurrection,  the  distant 
Judgment  Day,  and  such-like,  we  find  ourselves  in 


224  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

a  position  to  appreciate  the  beautiful  spiritual 
experience  in  which  these  very  terms  become  sym- 
bols of  inner  realities  of  the  soul.  Till  we  can  do 
this,  New  Testament  language  is  sure  to  be  a  hin- 
drance to  any  true  apprehension  of  the  moral  value 
of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  The  only  salvation  we  need 
trouble  about  is  the  change  from  selfishness  to  love, 
"  We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto 
life  because  we  love."  This  change  is  equivalent 
to  a  resurrection,  the  uprising  of  the  eternal  Christ 
within  us.  It  is  also  an  ascension,  the  uplifting 
and  uniting  of  the  soul  to  the  eternal  Father.  But 
such  a  resurrection  and  ascension  may  be  preceded 
by  a  great  deal  of  pain  when  the  soul  is  shedding  the 
husk  of  selfishness.  There  is  no  dodging  the  con- 
sequences of  sin;  that  is  absolutely  impossible. 
A  saviour  may  suffer  with  and  for  the  sinner,  but 
the  sinner  must  suffer  too.  The  suffering  is  not  a 
mark  of  God's  anger,  but  of  his  love;  so  far  from 
salvation  being  a  means  of  screening  us  from  it, 
the  pain  is  a  means  by  which  the  salvation  takes 
effect.  It  is  the  true  self  asserting  its  dominion 
over  the  false.  Heaven  and  hell  are  states  of  the 
soul,  and  the  latter  implies  the  former.  It  is  life 
that  suffers,  not  death.  When  a  guilty  soul  awakens 
to  the  truth,  hell  begins,  but  it  is  because  heaven 
wants  to  break  through.  The  aim  and  object  of 
salvation  are  not  the  getting  of  a  man  into  heaven, 
but  the  getting  of  heaven  into  him.  There  is  noth- 
ing horrifying  about  the  law  of  retribution,  although 


SALVATION,    JUDGMENT,    THE   LIFE  TO   COME      22$ 

it  is  inexorable  in  its  operation.  It  is  an  evidence  of 
our  divine  origin,  our  own  true  being  asserting  itself 
against  the  fetters  of  evil.  But  it  is  the  Christ  that 
saves  us,  not  the  retribution;  the  retribution  only 
shows  that  the  Christ  is  there,  and  that  from  the 
Calvary  caused  by  sin,  and  from  the  tomb  in  which 
the  true  self  lies  buried,  He  will  rise  in  glorious 
majesty  hi  the  soul  and  unite  us  in  the  bonds  of 
love  to  the  eternal  divine  humanity  which  is  God. 
Physical  death  of  minor  importance.  —  It  follows 
from  what  has  now  been  said  that  all  these  familiar 
terms  imply  each  other,  and  that  death,  judgment, 
heaven,  and  hell  cannot  properly  be  regarded  as 
the  "  Last  Things."  They  are  all  here  now,  here 
within  the  soul,  just  as  infinity  and  eternity  are  here 
now.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  hither  and  yonder,  but 
of  higher  and  lower.  Physical  death  is  not  the 
all-important  event  which  theologians  have  usually 
made  it  out  to  be;  it  is  only  a  bend  in  the  road. 
My  own  impression  is  that  when  we  individually 
pass  through  this  crisis,  we  shall  find  the  change  to 
be  very  slight.  It  will  mean  the  dropping  of  the 
scales  from  the  eyes,  and  that  is  about  all.  The 
things  we  have  been  living  for  on  this  side  will  only 
profit  us  in  so  far  as  they  have  gone  to  the  building 
up  of  a  Christlike  character.  If  a  man  has  been 
living  for  false  and  unworthy  ideals,  he  will  quickly 
find  it  out;  the  only  possession  he  can  take  to  the 
other  side  of  death  is  what  he  is.  Belief  in  the 
atoning  merits  and  the  finished  work  of  a  Saviour 
Q 


226  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

will  not  compensate  for  wasted  opportunities  and 
selfish  deeds;  these  latter  will  light  the  fires  of 
retribution  as  the  soul  awakes  to  its  true  con- 
dition, and  then,  and  not  till  then  perhaps,  will 
the  indwelling  Christ  obtain  His  opportunity.  Nor 
will  the  absence  of  a  formal  creed  shut  any  good 
man  out  of  heaven;  it  is  impossible  to  shut  a  man 
out  from  what  he  is.  What  we  sow  we  reap,  and 
we  do  so  just  because  of  what  we  fundamentally 
are.  Every  road  to  evil  ends  in  a  cul-de-sac.  Sooner 
or  later  every  soul  will  have  to  learn  that  it  is  no  use 
kicking  against  the  pricks;  we  must  learn  by  the 
consequences  of  our  mistakes  that,  being  what  we 
are,  the  children  of  the  Highest,  we  cannot  perma- 
nently rest  in  anything  less  than  the  love  of  God. 
Salvation  and  Atonement  are  just  as  operative  on 
the  other  side  of  death  as  on  this.  The  blind  soul 
goes  on  for  a  while  in  its  blundering  selfishness,  and 
the  Christ  spirit,  the  spirit  of  universal  love,  goes  on 
seeking  to  win  it  to  the  truth.  In  the  end  the  truth 
must  prevail  if  only  because  we  shall  have  to  learn 
that  the  lie  is  not  worth  while. 

Evidence  for  immortality  of  the  soul.  —  No  doubt 
there  are  some  readers  of  these  pages  who  profess 
themselves  agnostic  or  indifferent  with  regard  to 
the  question  of  immortality,  and  I  am  not  going 
to  argue  with  them.  It  seems  to  me  probable  that 
before  very  long  it  will  be  impossible  to  deny  it. 
The  mass  of  evidence  for  the  persistence  of  individual 
self-consciousness  after  death  is  increasing  rapidly 


SALVATION,   JUDGMENT,   THE   LIFE   TO    COME      227 

and  is  being  subjected  to  the  strictest  scientific 
investigation.  Men  like  Sir  William  Crookes  and 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  men  whose  words  are  entitled 
to  respect  from  the  point  of  view  of  modern  science, 
have  publicly  admitted  the  importance  of  such 
evidence;  before  long  the  scientific  world  in  general 
will  have  to  take  it  into  consideration.  But  to  me 
such  evidence  does  not  greatly  matter,  and  I  know 
very  little  about  it  at  first  hand.  I  build  my  belief 
in  immortality  on  the  conviction  that  the  funda- 
mental reality  of  the  universe  is  consciousness,  and 
that  no  consciousness  can  ever  be  extinguished, 
for  it  belongs  to  the  whole  and  must  be  fulfilled  in 
the  whole.  The  one  unthinkable  supposition  from 
this  point  of  view  is  that  any  kind  of  being  which 
has  ever  become  aware  of  itself,  that  is,  has  ever 
contained  a  ray  of  the  eternal  consciousness,  can 
perish. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE    KINGDOM  OF   GOD 

Order  of  the  subject.  —  From  the  consideration  of 
the  true  significance  of  such  terms  as  Salvation, 
Judgment,  Heaven,  and  Hell,  we  now  turn  to  one 
which  might  be  thought  to  occupy  a  relatively  in~ 
ferior  position  and  to  precede  them  in  order  of  time. 
But  if  we  have  been  right  in  holding  that  such  terms 
as  we  have  already  examined  represent  states  of  the 
soul  beginning  here  and  now,  we  have  considered 
them  in  their  rightful  place,  for  now  we  have  to  see 
how  these  states  of  the  soul  find  expression  in  human 
institutions.  In  a  word,  I  wish  to  devote  some  space 
to  the  consideration  of  the  great  subjects  of  the 
Church  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  relation  to  one 
another.  What  is  the  Church?  Where  did  the 
idea  spring  from?  What  had  Jesus  to  do  with  it 
originally  ?  What  is  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  how 
do  the  various  Christian  societies  which  call  them- 
selves churches  stand  in  regard  to  it  to-day?  To 
answer  any  of  these  questions  we  must  try  to  place 
ourselves  to  some  extent  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 
atmosphere  of  those  amongst  whom  the  ideas  first 
arose.  Let  us  take  the  Kingdom  first. 

Origin  of  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  —  At 
228 


THE   CHURCH   AND  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD      22Q 

the  time  when  Jesus  came  every  person  of  Jewish 
nationality  was  looking  for  the  establishment  of 
what  had  come  to  be  called  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
For  many  generations  the  Jews  had  been  a  subject 
race.  There  had  been  one  brief  period  of  national 
splendour  and  prosperity,  namely,  the  reigns  of  David 
and  Solomon.  After  generations  were  inclined  to 
idealise  these  two  reigns,  especially  the  former,  and 
to  look  upon  them  as  a  kind  of  golden  age.  David 
they  looked  upon  as  an  ideal  monarch;  they  called 
hun  a  "  man  after  God's  own  heart,"  and  the  im- 
agination of  poet  and  prophet  loved  to  dwell  upon 
his  winsome  personality.  They  thought  of  him  as  in 
a  special  way  the  king  chosen  by  God,  and  the  Israel 
of  his  time  as  a  true  kingdom  of  God,  a  kingdom 
of  righteousness,  peace,  and  plenty  under  the  favour 
of  the  Most  High.  The  real  Israel  of  David's  day 
was  far  different  from  this,  but  compared  with  the 
days  that  followed  it  was  indeed  a  time  of  unexam- 
pled greatness.  A  similar  tendency  to  idealise  the 
past  is  observable  in  nearly  every  nation  which  has 
entered  upon  a  period  of  suffering  or  misfortune, 
as  we  can  see  from  the  legends  about  King  Olaf  and 
Frederick  Barbarossa.  But  Israel  always  looked 
upon  herself  as  in  a  special  way  a  theocratic  kingdom, 
a  chosen  of  God.  At  its  best  this  idea  was  a  fine  one, 
one,  it  led  to  the  thought  of  a  special  spiritual  voca- 
tion for  the  sake  of  the  other  nations  of  the  earth; 
at  its  worst  it  meant  the  assertion  of  national  privi- 
lege and  contempt  for  everything  which  was  not 


230  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

Jewish.  After  the  great  captivity  in  Babylon  the 
Jews  were  never  without  a  foreign  master,  and  the 
northern  kingdom  of  Israel  disappeared  from  history. 
But  in  quite  a  remarkable  way  Jewish  poets  and 
preachers  united  to  keep  alive  the  popular  belief 
that  God  would  yet  "  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel." 
Hence  there  grew  up  a  firmly  held  conviction  that 
God  would  sometime  raise  up  a  prince  born  of 
David's  line  who  with  supernatural  help,  and  with 
a  strong  hand,  would  drive  out  the  invader  and 
establish  a  kingdom  which  should  outshine  even  that 
of  David  himself.  This  was  the  root  idea  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  as  we  meet  it  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  as  it  is  described  in  some  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful passages  of  the  Old. 

The  Messiah  of  Jewish  expectation.  —  As  time 
went  on  this  idea  was  deepened  and  clarified  and 
became  more  and  more  associated  in  popular  ex- 
pectation with  the  advent  of  the  Messianic  deliverer 
whose  work  it  should  be  to  inaugurate  it.  At  the 
time  when  Jesus  was  born  this  expectation  had  be- 
come very  keen.  Everyone  was  thinking  of  it,  from 
Pharisees  and  Scribes  downward.  At  the  moment 
the  foreign  master  was  the  Roman,  whose  rule, 
though  milder  than  that  of  the  Ptolemies,  was  quite 
severe  enough;  the  people  were  impoverished  and 
unhappy.  What  they  were  looking  for  was  a  Mes- 
siah, a  transcendent  but  quite  human  personality  of 
royal  descent,  who  should  expel  the  Roman  eagles 
and  inaugurate  suddenly  and  completely  an  era  of 


THE   CHURCH   AND  THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD      231 

peace  and  prosperity  the  like  of  which  had  never 
been  known  before,  a  true  kingdom  of  God.  One 
extension  of  this  idea  was  that  Israel  should  replace 
the  Roman  empire  as  the  suzerain  of  all  the  other 
nations  of  the  earth.  "  Arise,  shine;  for  thy  light 
is  come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee. 
For,  behold,  the  darkness  shall  cover  the  earth, 
and  gross  darkness  the  people:  but  the  Lord  shall 
rise  upon  thee,  and  his  glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee. 
And  the  Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings 
to  the  brightness  of  thy  rising.  .  .  .  And  the  sons 
of  strangers  shall  build  up  thy  walls,  and  their  kings 
shall  minister  unto  thee:  for  in  my  wrath  I  smote 
thee,  but  in  my  favour  have  I  had  mercy  on  thee. 
Therefore  thy  gates  shall  be  open  continually;  they 
shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night ;  that  men  may  bring 
unto  thee  forces  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  their  kings 
may  be  brought.  For  the  nation  and  kingdom 
that  will  not  serve  thee  shall  perish;  yea,  those  na- 
tions shall  be  utterly  wasted.  .  .  .  The  sons  also 
of  them  that  afflicted  thee  shall  come  bending  unto 
thee;  and  all  they  that  despised  thee  shall  bow 
themselves  down  at  the  soles  of  thy  feet;  and  they 
shall  call  thee,  The  city  of  the  Lord,  The  Zion  of 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel."  This  fine  passage  shows 
pretty  clearly  what  was  the  general  idea  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  anticipated  kingdom  of  God.  It 
meant  that  the  Jewish  Messiah  was  to  take  the  place 
of  Caesar  and  reign  with  undisputed  sway  from  his 
capital  of  Jerusalem. 


232  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

But  we  should  do  an  injustice  to  the  subject  if 
we  failed  to  allow  for  the  fact  that  according  to  the 
prophetic  ideal  this  kingdom  was  to  be  a  blessing 
to  the  world,  and  to  abolish  all  violence  and  oppres- 
sion; the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  be  a  kingdom  of 
universal  peace  and  joy,  a  kingdom  of  righteousness 
based  on  social  justice.  It  was  because  of  this  wide- 
spread expectation  that  the  austere  preacher,  John 
the  Baptist,  obtained  his  hearing  in  the  wilderness 
of  Judea.  All  John  had  to  preach  about  was  the 
kingdom  of  God,  which  he  declared  to  be  near  at 
hand.  He  believed  that  he  had  been  sent  to  herald 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  and  from  his  words  we 
can  gather  what  people  thought  about  the  Messiah : 
"  Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  he  will  throughly 
purge  his  floor,  and  gather  his  wheat  into  the  garner; 
but  he  will  burn  up  the  chaff  with  unquenchable 
fire."  According  to  the  Baptist,  the  Messiah  would 
spare  no  kind  of  sham  or  hypocrisy;  he  would  root 
out  and  utterly  destroy  every  kind  of  social  evil, 
no  matter  what.  John  insisted  that  it  would  be  of 
no  use  for  Jews  to  imagine  that  simply  because  they 
were  descendants  of  Abraham  they  would  escape 
this  general  visitation;  hence  his  words  to  the  Phari- 
sees were  particularly  scathing:  "O  generation  of 
vipers,  who  hath  warned  you  to  flee  from  the  wrath 
to  come  ?  "  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  man  who  has  now  come  to  be  regarded  as  the 
forerunner  of  Jesus,  the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  be 
an  earthly  kingdom,  was  to  come  suddenly,  and  was 


THE   CHURCH   AND  THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD      233 

to  be  inaugurated  by  a  sort  of  general  judgment  or 
clean  sweep  of  all  the  elements  that  made  for  oppres- 
sion, cruelty,  foul  living,  and  pretentiousness  of  every 
kind.  It  had  not  the  remotest  reference  to  a  world 
to  come  or  a  Divine  Redeemer  whose  principal  duty 
it  should  be  to  suffer  and  die  in  order  to  secure  a 
blessed  immortality  for  those  who  believed  in  Him. 

Jesus'  idea  of  the  kingdom.  —  How  far  Jesus 
shared  these  ideas  at  the  commencement  of  His  own 
ministry  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  it  seems  clear  that 
He  was  attracted  by  the  moral  earnestness  of  John 
and  wished  to  associate  Himself  with  those  who  were 
looking  for  a  kingdom  of  God  which  should  mean  the 
establishment  and  realisation  of  the  moral  ideal  in 
all  human  relations.  But  at  the  baptism  a  purpose 
long  forming  in  his  mind  appears  to  have  taken 
definite  shape.  He  felt  Himself  called  to  preach  the 
good  news  of  a  kingdom  which  could  begin  at  once 
in  the  heart  of  any  man  who  was  willing  to  become 
the  instrument  of  divine  love  and  the  expression  of 
the  ideal  of  human  brotherhood.  He  went  into  the 
wilderness  to  think  this  out  and  then  came  back  to 
teach  it.  I  do  not  think  He  imagined  that  it  could 
be  realised  quickly  and  easily,  but  it  seems  fairly 
obvious  that  at  first  He  expected  that  men  would 
be  so  glad  to  hear  about  it  that  they  would  hasten 
to  avail  themselves  of  it.  All  through  His  ministry 
He  spoke  of  little  else,  and  it  was  because  of  what 
He  had  to  say  about  the  nature  of  the  kingdom  that 
His  followers  were  attracted  to  Him.  Hence,  too, 


234  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

we  have  the  deathless  teaching  preserved  for  us  in 
the  synoptical  gospels:  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  .  .  . 
Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart  for  they  shall  see  God." 
The  meaning  of  Jesus  is  perfectly  clear  and  perfectly 
simple.  It  is  that  if  a  kingdom  of  universal  brother- 
hood is  ever  to  be  realised  on  earth,  it  can  only  come 
by  the  operation  of  universal  good  will.  This  has 
been  much  too  simple  for  most  of  the  theologians, 
and  so  they  have  endeavoured  to  twist  and  torture  it 
out  of  all  recognition.  As  time  went  on,  however, 
Jesus  came  to  see  that  it  would  not  be  realised  as 
quickly  as  even  He  had  thought.  Men  could  not 
or  would  not  understand ;  they  were  looking  for  a 
kingdom  which  should  mean  plenty  to  eat  and  drink, 
and  universal  dominion  for  the  sons  of  Abraham. 
Even  His  most  immediate  followers  were  unable 
to  divest  themselves  of  this  notion,  and  it  is  plain 
enough  that  they  went  on  hoping  even  to  the  end 
that  Jesus  would  head  a  revolt  and  establish  a  king- 
dom in  which  they  themselves  would  hold  positions  of 
dignity  and  importance:  "Grant  that  we  may  sit, 
the  one  on  thy  right  hand  and  the  other  on  thy  left 
in  thy  kingdom."  The  striking  rebuke  which  Jesus 
administered  to  these  pretensions,  by  setting  a  little 
child  in  the  midst  of  the  jealous  men,  will  never  be 
forgotten  while  the  world  lasts.  Jesus  did  believe  in 
an  earthly  kingdom  of  righteousness,  peace,  and 
joy,  but  it  is  evident  that  He  would  have  nothing  to 
say  to  violence  as  a  means  of  realising  it.  He  even 


THE  CHURCH   AND  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD      235 

believed  that  the  kingdom  had  already  come  in  the 
heart  of  any  man  who  was  desirous  of  being  at  one 
with  God  and  man  and  denied  himself  in  the  effort 
to  do  it :  "  And  when  he  was  demanded  of  the  Phari- 
sees, when  the  kingdom  of  God  should  come,  he 
answered  them  and  said,  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh 
not  with  observation:  Neither  shall  they  say,  Lo 
here !  or,  lo  there !  for,  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you." 

Early  Christian  idea  of  the  kingdom.  —  An  im- 
portant fact,  which  I  do  not  think  is  generally  rec- 
ognised, is  that  the  first  Christians  thought  almost 
precisely  what  the  Jews  did  about  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Most  people  are  accustomed  to  think  of  Chris- 
tianity as  having  been  from  the  first  a  religion  which 
had  principally  to  do  with  getting  men  ready  for  the 
next  world.  We  can  hardly  think  about  it  apart 
from  ecclesiastical  buildings,  choirs,  baptisms,  con- 
firmations, prayers  for  the  sick  and  dying,  and  so  on. 
So  much  have  we  been  accustomed  to  think  of  it  in 
this  way  that  the  average  man  reads  his  New  Testa- 
ment with  these  assumptions  in  the  background  of 
his  mind.  But  this  is  certainly  not  New  Testament 
Christianity.  The  apostles  and  their  followers  be- 
lieved like  the  Jews  in  the  sudden  establishment  of 
an  ideal  commonwealth  upon  earth.  This  was  how 
they  understood  the  Lord's  prayer,  "  Thy  kingdom 
come,  thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." 
They  did  not  even  wish  to  separate  from  Judaism, 
and  it  is  clear  from  Paul's  letters  that  there  was  at 


236  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

one  time  a  great  danger  that  the  new  faith  might 
become  a  mere  Jewish  sect.  The  Christians  differed 
from  the  Jews,  not  in  then*  ideal  concerning  the  king- 
dom, but  in  their  greater  moral  intensity  and  enthu- 
siasm, as  well  as  in  their  profound  conviction  that 
the  Lord  Jesus  was  God's  chosen  instrument  for 
realising  this  kingdom,  and  that  He  would  presently 
return  to  earth  and  do  it.  Any  unbiassed  reader  of 
the  New  Testament  can  see  for  himself  that  the  primi- 
tive Christians  lived  in  hourly  expectation  that  this 
was  what  would  happen.  Of  course  they  also  be- 
lieved in  their  Master's  continual  spiritual  presence 
with  them,  but  the  dominant  thought  in  their  minds 
was  that  of  a  dramatic  second  coming  and  the  inaugu- 
ration of  a  reign  of  righteousness  and  universal  peace, 
the  making  of  a  beautiful  world,  something  like  the 
Utopia  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells.  Nor  was  this  altogether 
a  delusion.  If  it  had  been,  Christianity  would  soon 
have  died.  But,  on  the  contrary,  it  lived  and  grew 
because  of  the  great  truth  behind  this  belief,  namely, 
that  the  Spirit  of  Christ  working  in  the  hearts  of 
men  is  gradually  producing  this  ideal  kingdom  in 
our  midst.  If,  with  this  view  of  the  character  of 
early  Christianity  in  our  minds,  we  go  afresh  to  the 
gospels  or  to  the  letters  of  Paul,  we  shall  find  it  abun- 
dantly confirmed.  There  is  no  getting  away  from 
it.  All  the  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  of  these  first 
Christians  were  centred  upon  the  belief  in  the  near 
advent  of  a  divine  kingdom  upon  earth  with  Jesus 
as  its  head.  This  belief  even  affected  the  practice  of 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD     237 

these  early  Christians  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of 
their  property.  To  understand  this,  let  us  put  our- 
selves in  their  place  and  ask  what  we  should  do  if  we 
were  possessed  by  the  conviction  that  the  whole  exist- 
ing social  order  might  come  to  an  end  to-morrow 
morning  or  next  week,  and  that  after  that  no  child 
of  God  would  ever  want  for  anything.  I  think  we 
should  be  sure  to  feel  that  the  holding  of  personal 
property  would  not  matter  much.  If,  hi  addition  to 
this,  our  hearts  were  filled  with  a  divine  enthusiasm, 
an  overmastering  love  for  Jesus  and  for  all  our 
brethren,  we  should  not  want  to  keep  anything  back 
that  could  serve  to  make  anyone  happier  for  the  short 
time  that  intervened  before  the  glorious  coming  of 
the  Lord.  This  was  just  how  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians felt.  They  had  no  organised  economic  sys- 
tem ;  no  one  was  compelled  to  give  anything,  but 
under  the  pressure  of  the  new  spirit  they  willingly 
gave  everything.  What  did  it  matter ?  they  thought; 
they  were  only  like  pilgrims  within  sight  of  home, 
or  watchers  waiting  for  the  morning. 

Origin  of  the  idea  of  the  church.  —  Where,  then, 
did  the  idea  of  the  church  come  from  ?  It  is  as  plain 
as  anything  can  be  that  the  primary  interest  of  early 
Christianity  was  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  took  the 
conception  over  from  Judaism  with  a  deeper  moral 
content  derived  from  the  preaching  and  the  life  of 
Jesus.  Its  first  adherents  did  not  even  know  that 
they  had  a  new  religion;  they  only  thought  they 
had  found  the  true  Messiah,  although  the  Jewish 


238  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

nation  as  a  whole  had  rejected  Him.  What  they 
wanted  above  everything  was  to  see  the  kingdom 
come  upon  earth,  and  we  now  know  that  they  were 
mistaken  in  imagining  that  it  would  be  established 
speedily  and  suddenly  by  the  visible  second  coming 
of  Jesus  on  the  clouds  of  heaven.  But  seeing  that 
they  were  thinking  of  it  in  this  way,  how  did  the  church 
arise  and  why? 

It  is  doubtful  if  Jesus  ever  used  the  word  "  church," 
for  the  two  verses  in  Matthew  in  which  He  is  credited 
with  it  are  probably  of  late  date  and  point  to  a  time 
when  the  ecclesiastical  organisation  was  fairly  well 
established.  Still  the  word  itself  has  an  interest 
and  a  history  of  its  own  apart  from  its  Christian  use. 
The  ecclesia,  as  most  of  my  readers  may  be  aware, 
was  the  assembly  of  the  citizens  of  any  Greek  city- 
state.  It  was  the  custom  for  the  whole  body  of  the 
members  of  a  Greek  self-governing  community  to 
be  called  together  from  time  to  time  for  the  transac- 
tion of  public  business.  This  assembly  was  the  final 
authority  in  matters  affecting  the  communal  wel- 
fare, and  even  after  the  various  Greek  states  became 
absorbed  in  the  Roman  empire  this  custom  was 
allowed  to  continue.  It  was  the  policy  of  the  Romans 
to  permit  a  large  measure  of  self-government  to  their 
subjects  of  any  alien  race,  and  therefore  the  ecclesia 
of  any  particular  city-state  continued  to  be  sum- 
moned as  usual  to  decide  upon  matters  of  local  im- 
portance. There  is  a  reference  to  this  in  the  nine- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Acts,  where  we  read  that  the 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD      239 

preaching  of  Christianity  in  Ephesus  caused  a  riot 
which  the  town  clerk  —  a  thoroughly  typical  town 
clerk !  —  succeeded  in  allaying  by  reminding  the 
demonstrators  that  if  they  had  any  real  cause  for 
complaint,  the  matter  ought  to  come  before  the  regu- 
lar ecclesia.  This  properly  constituted  ecclesia  to 
which  the  level-headed  town  clerk  referred  was  the 
general  assembly  of  the  citizens  for  the  transaction 
of  public  business. 

It  was  quite  natural  that  the  primitive  Christians 
should  have  come  to  adopt  this  word,  and  to  an  ex- 
tent this  very  idea,  as  a  convenient  description  of  the 
new  Christian  community.  After  the  departure 
of  their  Master  the  Christians  held  together,  and 
wherever  their  missionaries  went,  new  communities 
sprang  up,  animated  by  a  spirit  of  loyalty  to  Jesus 
and  a  desire  to  realise  His  ideal  for  mankind.  It  was 
quite  natural,  too,  that  the  apostles  should  recognise 
all  these  communities  as  being  in  reality  one  com- 
munity for  fellowship  of  faith  and  love;  it  was  the 
ecclesia,  or  assembly,  or  society  of  Jesus,  the  begin- 
ning of  the  church  of  Christ,  as  it  soon  came  to  be 
called.  There  was  no  elaborate  organisation;  noth- 
ing could  have  been  simpler.  Every  Christian  seems 
to  have  thought  that  as  it  would  not  be  long  before 
the  Master  came  again,  the  wise  and  right  thing  to 
do  was  for  His  followers  to  hold  together  and  witness 
Him  to  the  world,  until  that  great  event  took  place. 

Church  only  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  kingdom.  — 
But  how  far  did  Jesus  foresee  and  intend  this?  It 


240  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

is  difficult  to  say,  but  his  choice  of  twelve  apostles 
whom  He  carefully  trained  to  continue  His  work 
is  evidence  that  He  contemplated  the  formation  of 
some  kind  of  society  to  give  effect  to  His  teaching. 
The  number  twelve  points  to  the  probability  that 
He  thought  of  this  society  as  a  kind  of  new  Israel, 
a  spiritual  Israel,  which  should  do  for  the  world 
what  the  older  Israel  had  failed  to  do,  that  is,  bring 
about  the  kingdom  of  God.  I  have  already  pointed 
out  that  in  my  judgment  Jesus  did  not  believe,  as 
His  contemporaries  did,  that  that  kingdom  could 
be  established  suddenly  from  without,  but  held 
that  it  could  only  be  achieved  by  spiritual  forces 
working  from  within.  His  ecdesia  has  lived  and 
grown.  It  has  survived  for  nineteen  centuries,  and 
is  likely  to  survive  for  many  centuries  more.  It 
has  played  a  leading  part  in  the  making  of  modern 
civilisation.  But  it  is  no  longer  a  unity,  and  many 
different  theories  exist  as  to  its  meaning  and  worth. 
The  sacerdotal  theory.  —  Broadly  speaking,  how- 
ever, there  are  two  outstanding  views  as  to  the 
scope  and  function  of  the  ecdesia,  or  church  of 
Jesus.  One  is  the  sacerdotal,  and  the  other  is 
what,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  I  may  term  the 
evangelical.  In  outline  the  former  is  as  follows: 
before  Jesus  finally  withdrew  His  bodily  presence 
from  His  disciples  He  formally  constituted  a  reli- 
gious society  to  represent  Him  on  earth.  This 
society  was  to  be  the  ark  of  salvation,  the  "  sphere 
of  covenanted  grace."  Its  principal  work  was  to 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD     241 

call  men  out  of  a  lost  and  ruined  world  and  secure 
for  them  a  blessed  immortality;  those  who  were 
members  of  this  church,  and  only  they,  were  certain 
of  heaven.  Membership  therein  was  clearly  denned; 
the  gateway  was  baptism.  Those  who  were  baptized 
in  a  proper  way,  even  though  they  were  unconscious 
infants,  were  members  of  the  church  of  Christ  and 
all  others  were  outside.  Within  this  sacred  society 
souls  were  to  be  trained  in  lightness  of  living,  and, 
to  an  extent,  made  fit  for  heaven.  The  Holy  Spirit 
abiding  in  this  society  would  sanctify  the  individual 
members  and  guide  them  into  all  the  truth.  It  is 
even  held  that  Jesus  definitely  appointed  the  way 
in  which  this  church  was  to  be  governed.  Its  affairs 
were  to  be  managed  by  a  threefold  order,  —  bishops, 
priests,  and  deacons.  But  here  a  division  has  taken 
place  amongst  the  sacerdotalists  themselves  owing 
to  the  necessity  of  finding  some  final  authority,  some 
living  voice,  within  this  visible  society  to  which 
appeal  in  the  last  resort  could  be  made.  Romanists 
have  found  this  in  the  bishop  of  Rome  whom  they 
regard  as  the  episcopal  successor  of  the  apostle 
Peter.  Devout  Anglicans  take  their  stand  upon  the 
faith  as  defined  by  the  first  four  general  Councils, 
while  in  administrative  matters  they  regard  the  bishop 
as  independent.  The  Greek  church  also  insists  upon 
its  autonomy. 

This  sacerdotal  view  has  exercised  enormous  influ- 
ence in  Christian  history,  and  I  have  sufficient  of  the 
historic  imagination  to  be  able  to  say  that  at  certain 


242  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

times  it  has  undoubtedly  worked  on  the  whole  for 
good.  But  did  Jesus  really  found  a  church  of  this 
kind?  I  am  quite  sure  He  never  thought  of  such 
a  thing,  and  historical  criticism  of  Christian  origins 
does  not  leave  the  sacerdotalist  much  to  stand  on. 
Jesus  appointed  neither  bishop  nor  priest,  and  never 
ordained  that  any  merely  mechanical  ceremony 
should  be  the  means  of  admission  to  the  Christian 
society  or  be  necessary  to  the  eternal  welfare  of  any- 
one. In  the  early  church  the  bishop  or  elder  was 
the  president  of  the  little  Christian  society  meeting 
in  any  particular  locality.  Primitive  Christian  or- 
ganisation was  anything  but  rigid  and  formal,  and 
was  as  far  as  possible  from  the  sacerdotal  model. 
I  do  not  say  that  the  sacerdotal  mode  of  organisa- 
tion which  gradually  grew  up  was  wholly  mis- 
chievous, nor  do  I  say  that  the  primitive  Christian 
organisation  would  be  the  best  under  all  circum- 
stances. All  I  maintain  is  that  in  founding  His 
new  society  Jesus  did  not  ordain  any  particular 
form  of  organisation. 

The  evangelical  theory.  — The  other  view  of  the 
meaning  of  the  word  "church  "  to  which  I  have 
already  referred,  is  that  it  is  the  totality  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  Jesus.  Under  this  view  organisation  is 
a  secondary  matter.  There  are  many  reasons  why 
Christian  societies  should  organise  themselves  dif- 
ferently from  one  another.  Temperament  plays  a 
great  part  in  the  matter.  But  theories  of  church 
government  have  ceased  to  be  the  burning  questions 


THE   CHURCH  AND  THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD      243 

that  they  once  were.  Most  sensible  men  are  now 
satisfied  that  forms  of  government  matter  much  less 
than  the  kind  of  life  which  nourishes  in  the  society 
itself. 

What  the  church  exists  for  to-day.  —  But  what 
does  the  church  exist  for,  using  the  word  hi  its  primi- 
tive sense?  What  ought  it  to  exist  for  to-day? 
What  is  the  justification  for  all  the  vast  number  of 
Christian  organisations  which  exist  throughout  the 
world?  This  is  a  subject  upon  which  a  clear  note 
needs  to  be  sounded,  for  a  great  deal  of  mental 
confusion  exists  in  regard  to  it.  Two  inconsistent 
views  of  the  work  of  the  church,  as  well  as  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  church,  have  come  down  the  ages 
together  and  exist  side  by  side  hi  the  world  to-day. 
The  first  is  that  the  chief  business  of  the  church  is  to 
snatch  men  as  brands  from  the  burning  and  get  them 
ready  for  a  future  heaven.  The  Fall  theory  has  had 
much  to  do  with  this.  The  assumption  behind  it  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  that  the  world  is  a  City  of  Destruc- 
tion, as  Bunyan  calls  it.  It  is  a  ruined  world,  a 
world  which  has  somehow  baflfled  and  disappointed 
God,  a  failure  of  a  world  which,  when  the  cup  of  its 
iniquity  is  full,  will  be  utterly  destroyed  as  a  general 
judgment.  When  that  dreadful  day  comes  it  will  be 
bad  for  all  those  who  are  outside  the  fellowship  of 
Christ,  for,  like  those  who  have  died  without  availing 
themselves  of  the  means  of  salvation,  they  will  be 
relegated  to  everlasting  torment  in  the  world  unseen. 
This  view  of  the  fate  of  the  world  as  being  at  enmity 


244  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

with  God,  and  of  the  duty  of  the  church  to  persuade 
as  many  as  possible  to  believe  something  or  other 
in  order  to  secure  salvation  in  a  future  and  better 
world,  has  been  held  by  sacerdotalists  and  non- 
sacerdotalists,  Catholics  and  Protestants  alike.  It 
is  still  implied  in  most  of  our  preaching  and  in  the 
hymns  we  sing.  I  admit  that  there  is  a  certain  truth 
in  itj  the  truth  that  man  is  constituted  for  immortality 
and  ought  not  to  live  as  if  this  world  were  all  that 
mattered.  But  on  the  whole,  it  has  been  thoroughly 
mischievous,  and  there  is  nothing  which  is  acting 
as  a  greater  hindrance  to  the  spirituality  and  use- 
fulness of  the  churches  to-day.  It  is  based  on  an 
entirely  false  idea  as  to  the  relation  of  God  and  the 
world. 

To  save  the  world*  — But  alongside  of  this  view  a 
far  higher  and  nobler  one  has  been  present  to  the 
minds  of  Christians  in  every  century,  namely,  that 
the  work  of  the  church  is  to  save  the  world  and  to 
believe  that  it  is  worth  the  saving.  If  what  I  have 
already  said  be  true,  this  is  the  idea  which  was  in  the 
mind  of  Jesus  when  He  founded  His  ecclesia.  To 
Him  the  purpose  of  the  ecclesia  was  to  help  to  realise 
the  kingdom  of  God  by  preaching  and  living  the 
fellowship  of  love.  Ever  since  His  day  those  who 
have  been  nearest  to  Him  in  spirit  have  been  going 
forth  into  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  trying  to  win 
men  to  the  realisation  of  the  great  ideal  of  a  universal 
fellowship  of  love  based  on  a  common  relationship 
to  the  God  and  Father  of  us  all.  This  is  what 


THE   CHURCH   AND  THE    KINGDOM   OF   GOD      245 

Augustine  aimed  at  in  his  City  of  God.  It  was  what 
Ambrose  had  in  mind  when  he  excommunicated  the 
emperor  Theodosius  for  having  ordered  a  cruel 
massacre  of  some  of  his  rebellious  subjects.  It  was 
the  ideal  of  the  mighty  Hildebrand,  grim  and  ar- 
rogant though  he  was,  when  he  compelled  princes  to 
bow  their  haughty  necks  and  do  justice  to  the  weak. 
It  was  what  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  meant  to  declare 
when  he  defied  the  cruel  and  sensual  king  of  France 
to  approach  the  altar  of  Christ.  Savonarola  realised 
it  for  a  brief  moment  in  Florence,  Calvin  in  Geneva, 
the  Covenanters  in  Scotland,  the  Puritans  in  England, 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  America.  They  all  failed 
because  the  world  can  never  be  saved  by  the  im- 
position of  ideal  institutions  from  without  and  by 
force;  it  can  only  be  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  working 
from  within.  But  to  some  extent  they  all  succeeded, 
too,  for  the  world  is  a  better  place  to  live  in  because 
of  the  gradual  and  cumulative  redemptive  effort 
of  the  Christian  ecclesia,  the  Church  of  Jesus.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  ledger  we  have  to  set  many 
things  that  ecclesiasticism  has  done,  —  cruel  perse- 
cutions, infamous  tortures,  burnings  and  massacres, 
devastating  wars,  and  fierce  religious  hatreds. 
But  these  things  have  never  belonged  to  Jesus;  they 
are  the  very  negation  of  His  spirit.  The  true  church 
of  Christ  in  any  and  every  age  consists  of  those  and 
those  only  who  are  trying  like  their  Master  to  make 
the  world  better  and  gladder  and  worthier  of  God. 
The  word  "  church "  has  become  so  hateful  to 


246  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

many  because  of  the  admixture  of  other  ideals  with 
this  that  I  sometimes  wish  something  could  be  done 
either  to  get  rid  of  it  or  to  change  it  for  another  which 
shall  fully  and  clearly  express  what  Jesus  really 
came  to  do.  I  maintain  that  the  church  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  preparing  men  for  a  world  to 
come;  the  best  way  to  prepare  a  man  for  the  world 
beyond  is  to  get  him  to  live  well  and  truly  in  this  one. 
The  church  exists  to  make  the  world  a  kingdom  of 
God,  and  to  fill  it  with  His  love.  No  greater  mistake 
could  be  made  than  to  estimate  the  church  of  Jesus 
by  ecclesiastical  squabbles  and  divisions,  or  even 
by  Psalm-singing  and  go-to-meeting  talk.  Look 
for  the  spirit  of  Jesus  at  work,  and  you  have  found 
the  church  too. 

Modern  industrialism  and  the  church.  —  Judged 
by  this  standard  where  are  the  churches  to-day? 
We  have  seen  that  the  only  gospel  which  Jesus 
had  to  preach  was  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  of 
God;  everything  He  ever  said  can  be  included  un- 
der that  head.  His  Church,  or  Christian  society,  or 
whatever  else  we  like  to  call  it,  has  no  meaning  unless 
it  exists  for  the  realisation  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
We  cannot  state  this  too  strongly.  The  whole  of  the 
other-worldism  of  the  churches,  the  elaborate  para- 
phernalia of  doctrine  and  observance,  is  utterly 
useless  and  worse  than  useless  unless  it  ministers  to 
this  end.  Unless  it  can  be  shown  that  I  am  wrong 
in  this  supposition  —  and  I  think  that  will  be  pretty 
hard  to  do  —  a  fairly  good  case  could  be  made  out 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE   KINGDOM  OF  GOD      247 

for  burning  down  most  of  the  theological  colleges 
in  the  land  and  sending  the  bright  young  fellows  in 
them  to  do  some  serious  work  for  the  common  good. 
For  it  must  be  confessed,  as  I  said  at  the  beginning, 
that  the  churches  are  to  a  large  extent  a  failure. 
We  cannot  but  recognise,  for  one  thing,  that  our 
modem  civilisation,  with  all  its  boasted  advance  on 
the  past,  is  still  un-Christian.  It  puts  a  premium 
upon  selfishness.  Modem  industrialism  is  cruel 
and  unjust  and  directly  incites  men  to  self-seeking. 
The  weak  and  unfortunate  have  to  go  to  the  wall; 
little  mercy  is  shown  to  the  man  who  is  not  strong 
enough  to  fight  his  way  and  keep  his  footing  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  We  are  all  the  time  making 
war  upon  one  another, — man  against  man,  business 
against  business,  class  against  class,  nation  against 
nation.  We  talk  of  our  freedom,  but  no  man  is 
really  free,  and  the  great  majority  of  us  are  slaves 
to  some  corporation,  or  capitalist,  or  condition  of 
things,  which  renders  the  greater  part  of  life  a  con- 
tinuous anxiety  lest  health  or  means  should  fail 
and  we  should  prove  unequal  to  the  demands  made 
upon  us.  If  a  man  goes  under,  his  acquaintances 
will  pity  him  for  five  minutes  and  then  forget  all 
about  him.  There  is  no  help  for  it;  they  cannot  do 
anything  else,  they  have  their  own  living  to  get. 
They  are  like  soldiers  in  the  heat  of  battle ;  they  must 
not  pause  to  mourn  over  a  fallen  comrade  or  they 
may  soon  be  stretched  beside  him.  I  do  not  mean, 
of  course,  to  make  the  foolish  statement  that  present- 


248  THE   NEW  THEOLOGY 

day  industrialism  is  unrestrainedly  individualistic: 
thank  God  it  is  not  that.  But  the  principle  of  com- 
petition still  exercises  a  sway  so  potent  as  to  stamp 
modern  social  organisation  as  un-Christian.  We  may 
just  as  well  recognise  that  fact  and  state  it  plainly. 
The  glaringly  unequal  ownership  of  material  wealth 
is  anti-social;  it  is  good  neither  for  the  rich  man  nor 
for  the  poor,  for  it  is  to  the  interest  of  every  man  that 
the  body  politic  should  be  healthy  and  happy. 
That  so  large  a  number  of  our  total  population  should 
have  to  exist  upon  the  very  margin  of  subsistence 
is  a  moral  wrong.  We  have  no  business  to  have  any 
slums,  or  sweating  dens,  or  able-bodied  unemployed, 
or  paupers.  Poverty,  dulness  of  brain,  and  coarse- 
ness of  habit  are  often  found  in  close  association. 
Some  amount  of  material  endowment  is  required  even 
for  the  development  of  the  intelligence  and  the  train- 
ing of  the  moral  faculties.  Wealth  possesses  no 
value  in  itself;  it  only  possesses  value  as  a  means 
to  more  abundant  life.  If  there  is  one  thing  upon 
which  Christianity  insists  more  than  another,  it  is 
the  duty  of  caring  for  the  weak  and  sinful,  but  at 
present  this  duty  is  only  recognised  to  a  very  limited 
extent. 

Christianity  and  Collectivism.  —  In  what  I  am 
now  saying  I  am  well  aware  that  I  have  come  to  a 
phase  of  my  subject  which  thousands  of  my  country- 
men are  stating  so  clearly  and  forcibly  as  to  compel 
attention ;  but  what  I  want  to  show  is  that  the  present 
unideal  condition  of  the  civilised  world  is  an  indict- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD      249 

ment  of  the  churches  and  their  conventional  doc- 
trines. We  seem  to  have  forgotten  our  origin.  I 
have  long  felt,  as  I  suppose  every  Christian  minis- 
ter must  feel,  the  antagonism  between  the  Christian 
standard  of  conduct  and  that  required  in  ordinary 
business  life.  There  is  no  blinking  the  fact  that  the 
standard  of  Christ  and  the  standard  of  the  commer- 
cial world  are  not  the  same.  Our  work  is  to  make 
them  the  same,  and  to  that  end  we  must  destroy 
the  social  system  which  makes  selfishness  the  rule 
and  compels  a  man  to  act  upon  his  lower  motives, 
and  we  must  put  a  better  in  its  place.  We  must 
establish  a  social  order  wherein  a  man  can  be  free 
to  be  his  best,  and  to  give  his  best  to  the  com- 
munity without  crushing  or  destroying  anyone  else. 
In  a  word  we  want  Collectivism  in  the  place  of 
competition;  we  want  the  kingdom  of  God.  Char- 
ity is  no  remedy  for  our  social  ills  and  their  moral 
outcome ;  the  only  remedy  is  a  new  social  organisation 
on  a  Christian  basis.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  form 
of  Collectivism,  as  a  mere  system  superposed  from 
without,  can  ever  really  make  the  world  happy; 
it  must  be  the  expression  of  the  spirit  of  brotherhood 
working  from  within.  Neither  do  I  feel  much  faith 
in  any  sudden  and  cataclysmic  reformation  of  society. 
The  history  of  Christendom  proves  that  no  institution 
can  be  much  in  advance  of  human  nature  and  sur- 
vive. Covenanters  and  Puritans  found  that  out  when 
they  tried  to  make  men  godly  by  Act  of  Parliament; 
Savonarola  found  it  out  when  the  wild  passions  of 


250  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

the  Florentines,  restrained  for  a  brief  hour,  broke 
their  chains  and  destroyed  him;  the  Christians  of 
New  Testament  times  found  it  out  when  their 
beautiful  experiment  of  social  brotherhood  came 
to  an  end  in  the^horror  and  darkness  of  the  break- 
up of  Jewish  national  life.  But  at  least  we  can 
recognise  the  presence  of  the  guiding  Spirit  of  God 
in  all  our  social  concerns  and  work  along  with  it 
for  the  realisation  of  the  ideal  of  universal  brother- 
hood. We  can  show  men  what  Jesus  really  came 
to  do,  and,  as  His  servants,  we  can  help  Him  to 
do  it.  We  can  definitely  recognise  that  the  move- 
ment toward  social  regeneration  is  really  and  truly 
a  spiritual  movement,  and  that  it  must  never  be 
captured  by  materialism.  I  deplore  the  fact  that, 
for  the  moment,  the  main  current  of  the  great 
Labour  movement  which,  perhaps  more  than  any 
other,  represents  the  social  application  of  the  Chris- 
tian ideal,  should  appear  to  be  out  of  touch  with 
organised  religion.  This  cannot  continue,  for  I  ob- 
serve^ that  the  men  who  lead  it  are  men  of  moral 
passion,  and  often  men  of  simple  religious  faith. 
It  could  hardly  be  otherwise.  It  seems  to  me  in 
the  nature  of  things  impossible  to  sustain  a  belief 
in  the  moral  ideal  without  some  kind  of  belief  in 
God,  and  assuredly  God  is  with  these  men  in  the 
work  they  are  doing  and  have  yet  to  do.  In  fact, 
the  Labour  Party  is  itself  a  Church,  in  the  sense  in 
which  that  word  was  originally  used,  for  it  repre- 
sents the  getting-together  of  those  who  want  to 
bring  about  the  kingdom  of  God. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD      251 

The  New  Theology  and  Collectivism.  — The  New 
Theology,  as  I  understand  it,  is  the  theology  of  this 
movement,  whether  the  movement  knows  it  or 
not,  for  it  is  essentially  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  No  lesser  theology  can  consistently  claim 
to  be  this;  systems  of  belief  which  are  weighted  by 
dogmatic  considerations  have  not  and  cannot  have 
the  same  power  of  appeal.  This  higher,  wider  truth, 
which  sweeps  away  the  mischievous  accretions  which 
have  made  religion  distasteful  to  the  masses,  is 
religious  articulation  of  the  movement  toward  an 
ideal  social  order.  This  fact  ought  to  be  realised 
and  brought  home  to  the  consciousness  of  the  earnest 
men  who  are  labouring  to  redeem  England  and 
the  world  from  the  power  of  all  that  tortures  and 
degrades  humanity  and  stifles  or  destroys  its  best 
life. 

This,  then,  is  the  mission  of  the  New  Theology. 
It  is  to  brighten  and  keep  burning  the  flame  of  the 
spiritual  ideal  hi  the  midst  of  the  mighty  social 
movement  which  is  now  in  progress.  It  is  ours  to 
see  God  in  it  and  help  mankind  to  see  Him  too. 
It  is  ours  to  show  what  the  gospel  really  is  and  has 
been  from  the  first.  We  shall  not  suffer  the  world 
any  longer  to  believe  that  Christianity  and  dogma 
mean  the  same  thing.  Our  business  is  to  show  that 
the  religion  of  Jesus  is  primarily  a  gospel  for  this 
life  and  only  secondarily  for  the  life  to  come.  We 
have  to  demonstrate  that  material  things  have 
spiritual  meanings,  and  that  wealth  has  value  only 


252  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

as  it  ministers  to  soul  power.  We  have  to  make  clear 
to  the  world  that  the  reason  why  we  want  to  lift 
any  man  up  and  give  him  a  chance  of  a  better  and 
happier  life  here  is  because  he  has  an  immortal 
destiny  and  must  make  a  beginning  somewhere  if 
he  is  to  reach  the  stature  of  the  perfect  man  at  last. 
We  believe  that  faith  is  the  one  indispensable  quali- 
fication for  this  work,  as  for  any  work  that  is  worth 
the  doing,  or  ever  has  been  worth  the  doing,  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  It  is  the  victory  that  over- 
cometh  the  world. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

CONCLUSION 

A  personal  word.  — The  task  which  has  occupied 
the  greater  part  of  my  winter  resting  time  has  now 
been  accomplished,  as  far  as  opportunity  affords. 
What  has  been  said  in  these  pages  is  no  more  than  an 
outline  statement  of  the  teaching  which  has  been 
given  from  the  City  Temple  pulpit  ever  since  I  came 
into  it.  There  is  not  a  single  thought  in  this  book 
with  which  my  own  people  are  not  already  quite 
familiar,  and  chapter  and  verse  for  it  can  be  pro- 
duced from  my  published  sermons  which  have  been 
appearing  week  by  week  for  years  past  in  the  Chris- 
tian Commonwealth  and  other  periodicals.  If 
space  had  permitted,  I  should  like  to  have  said  much 
more,  for  necessarily  many  phases  of  the  subject 
have  had  to  be  left  untouched;  it  has  only  been 
possible  to  deal  with  those  of  fundamental  im- 
portance. For  example,  I  should  like  to  have  in- 
cluded some  examination  of  the  great  question  of 
Miracles,  the  place  of  Prayer  in  Christian  experience, 
and  the  value  and  significance  of  Biblical  Criticism. 
But  as  it  has  not  been  possible  to  do  this  I  must  add 
a  word  or  two  to  indicate  my  position  in  regard  to 
these  matters. 

253 


254  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

Miracle.  —  It  seems  probable  that  before  long  we 
shall  see  a  rehabilitation  of  belief  in  the  credibility 
of  certain  kinds  of  miracle,  and  that  this  rehabili- 
tation will  proceed  from  the  side  of  psychical  science. 
Already  there  are  signs  that  this  rehabilitation  is  on 
the  way.  The  power  of  mind  over  matter  is  being 
recognised  for  therapeutic  purposes,  for  instance, 
in  a  way  hitherto  undreamed  of,  and  is  receiving  a 
large  and  increasing  measure  of  attention  from  the 
medical  profession.  This  appears  to  me  to  throw 
a  considerable  amount  of  light  upon  the  healing 
ministry  of  Jesus,  which,  as  the  late  Professor 
A.  B.  Bruce  has  pointed  out,  rests  upon  as  good 
historical  ground  as  the  best-accredited  parts  of  the 
teaching.  Given  a  time  and  a  mental  atmosphere 
in  which  men  expected  miracles  of  this  sort,  and  given 
a  personality  of  such  wonderful  magnetic  force  as 
that  of  Jesus,  such  miracles  would  be  sure  to  happen. 
That  they  did  not  happen  apart  from  such  conditions 
is  evident  from  such  hints  as  the  statement  that, 
"  He  could  do  no  mighty  works  there  because  of  their 
unbelief."  There  are  other  kinds  of  miracle  recorded 
in  scripture  which  are  not  so  easily  credible,  but  I 
am  not  always  prepared  to  brush  them  aside  as  mere 
childish  fancies.  As  a  rule  it  will  be  found  that  they 
belong  to  the  poetry  of  religious  experience,  and  that 
some  valuable  truth  is  contained  in  this  particular 
form  of  statement.  To  this  order  belong  the  ac- 
counts about  the  horses  and  chariots  of  fire  on  the 
hillside  round  about  Elisha,  the  whirlwind  in  which 


CONCLUSION  255 

Elijah  ascended  to  heaven,  and  Jesus  walking  on  the 
sea.  These  accounts  are  forms  in  which  the  oriental 
imagination  is,  even  to-day,  wont  to  clothe  truths 
too  great  for  prosaic  statement;  they  are  poetry, 
not  history,  and  the  western  mind  ought  to  make  al- 
lowance for  the  fact.  Sometimes  we  can  discern  in 
scripture  records  of  an  event,  which  to  the  stolid 
western  imagination  seems  utterly  incredible,  a 
genuine  historical  truth.  Such,  for  instance,  are 
the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  —  a  stirring  and  dra- 
matic incident,  thoroughly  well  told  —  and  Joshua 
commanding  the  sun  and  moon  to  stand  still.  In  the 
latter  case  we  have  two  lines  of  poetry  from  a  book 
which  has  been  lost,  and  a  comparison  with  similar 
poetry  in  almost  any  literature  gives  us  a  clew  to  its 
meaning.  The  poet  represents  the  old  warrior  as 
declaring  in  magnificent  style  that  the  sun  of  Israel 
shall  not  go  down,  and  that  day  and  night  shall  be 
alike  to  him  until  her  enemies  are  discomfited. 
Any  reader  with  a  shred  of  sympathetic  imagination 
ought  to  be  able  to  feel  the  force  of  the  sentiment 
which  provoked  this  utterance  without  either  ac- 
cepting or  rejecting  it  as  a  literal  statement  of  fact; 
the  best  things  which  have  been  written  in  the  books 
of  the  world  are  seldom  literal  and  exact  statements 
of  fact.  It  has  been  well  pointed  out  that  myth 
and  legend  are  truer  than  history,  for  they  take  us  to 
the  inside  of  things,  whereas  history  only  shows  us 
the  outside. 
Prayer. — Prayer  is  a  vital  necessity  to  religious  ex- 


256  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

perience,  and  without  it  no  religious  experience  has 
ever  existed  or  ever  can.  It  is  not  primarily  petition 
but  communion  with  God.  Our  intercourse  with 
our  friends  does  not  chiefly  consist  in  asking  them 
for  things !  But  when  communion  does  become 
petition,  there  is  a  real  place  for  it  as  well  as  for  the 
answer  to  such  prayer.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  no  true  prayer  has  ever  gone  without  its  answer. 
This  is  quite  consistent  with  the  assertion  that  prayer 
does  not  change  God ;  it  only  affords  Him  opportunity. 
It  is  impossible  to  improve  on  what  God  already 
desires  for  us  before  we  pray,  but  upon  our  prayer 
depends  the  realisation  of  that  desire.  Everything 
that  the  soul  can  possibly  need  is  present  before- 
hand in  the  eternal  reality,  and  the  prayer  of  faith 
is  like  going  into  a  treasure-house  and  bringing  forth 
from  what  is  contained  therein  all  that  the  soul  needs 
day  by  day.  Prayer,  therefore,  cannot  be  too  definite, 
but  it  should  be  as  unselfish  as  the  worshipper  can 
make  it  in  order  that  the  highest  can  operate  in 
response.  The  same  law  holds  good  in  this  as  in 
all  other  activities  of  the  soul;  selfishness  draws 
away  from  the  source  of  life,  whereas  love  is  instantly 
at  one  with  infinity.  I  question  whether  many 
people  realise  the  enormous  value  of  definite  and 
systematic  prayer;  it  is  the  secret  of  all  spiritual 
power.  Everything  that  we  can  possibly  want  is 
waiting  for  us  in  the  bounty  of  God,  and  what  we 
have  to  do  is  to  go  and  take  it.  "Believe  that  ye 
have  received  them  and  ye  shall  have  them." 


CONCLUSION  257 

The  Bible  and  the  young. — One  thing  that  ur- 
gently needs  to  be  done  for  the  young  people  in  our 
Sunday-schools  and  various  Christian  societies  all 
over  the  world  is  to  issue  a  series  of  well-written 
popular  manuals  presenting  in  succinct  form  the  best 
results  of  Biblical  Criticism.  The  way  the  Bible  is 
taught  to  young  people  at  present  is  most  regrettable, 
for  in  after  years  it  leads  them  to  doubt  and  distrust 
the  very  foundations  of  Christianity.  If  the  teachers 
only  had  a  little  more  intelligent  acquaintance  with 
the  sources  of  the  scriptures,  this  danger  would  be 
avoided  and  the  Bible  would  become  a  far  more  in- 
teresting and  helpful  book  both  to  young  and  old. 
At  present  it  is  interpreted  by  many  people  in  a  way 
which  is  an  insult  to  the  intelligence  and  harmful 
to  the  moral  sense.  Will  anyone  seriously  main- 
tain that  the  trickeries  of  Jacob  and  the  butcheries 
following  the  Israelitish  invasion  of  Canaan,  not  to 
speak  of  the  obscenities  which  are  to  be  found  in  so 
many  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  are  healthy  reading 
for  children  or  a  mark  of  divine  inspiration?  Is  it 
not  time  we  adopted  the  more  excellent  way  of  facing 
the  truth  about  the  Bible  records  and  presenting 
what  is  valuable  in  such  a  way  as  to  help  and  not  to 
hinder  the  growth  of  a  true  knowledge  of  the  rela- 
tions of  God  and  man  ? 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  emphatically  that  no  one 
but  myself  is  responsible  for  a  single  word  in  this 
book.  Among  the  many  wild  and  unjust  criticisms 
which  have  been  published  concerning  my  views, 


2$8  THE  NEW  THEOLOGY 

none  is  wider  of  the  mark  than  that  I  have  borrowed 
from  this  man  or  that  in  my  statement  of  them.  I 
am  not  conscious  of  owing  a  scintilla  of  my  theology 
to  any  living  man.  In  so  far  as  it  coincides  with 
anyone  else's  views  I  am  thankful,  for  it  shows  that 
the  same  eternal  Spirit  of  Truth  is  speaking  to  others 
than  myself.  But  I  hope  I  may  be  permitted  to  say 
with  due  humility  that  in  thinking  out  my  position, 
"  I  conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood."  Perhaps 
some  people  will  maintain  that  this  makes  my  teach- 
ing all  the  worse,  but  if  so  I  cannot  help  it.  It  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  in  its  main  bearing,  to  say 
no  more,  it  is  seen  to  be  rising  spontaneously  in  every 
part  of  the  civilised  world.  Again,  no  thinker  can 
ever  succeed  in  completely  closing  the  circle  of  his 
system  of  thought,  and  I  cannot  claim  to  be  an  ex- 
ception. But  I  trust  it  will  be  seen  that  what  is 
contained  in  this  book  is  at  least  a  self-consistent 
whole:  every  arc  of  the  circle  implies  every  other. 
It  only  remains  to  reiterate  my  conviction  that  the 
movement  represented  by  the  New  Theology  is  only 
incidentally  theological  at  all;  it  is  primarily  a  moral 
and  spiritual  movement.  It  is  one  symptom  of  a 
great  religious  awakening  which  in  the  end  will  re- 
inspire  civilisation  with  a  living  faith  in  God  and  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  life.  If  what  I  am  trying  to  do 
can  contribute  in  any  way  toward  this  grand  result, 
I  shall  be  humbly  thankful  to  the  Giver  of  all  good. 


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